Towards sustainable FIFA world cup 2022: a cradle-to-cradle social life cycle impact assessment for reusable container stadium in the state of Qatar

Abstract

Restorative circular economy practices in green stadium construction act as a shrewd economic move in reaching net-zero carbon emission goals for Qatar, the 2022 FIFA World Cup host. This research intends to conduct the first social life cycle impact assessment for Ras Abu Aboud stadium, a reusable shipping container stadium in Qatar, that will be the host to 40,000 spectators from around the world, which will then be dismantled after the world cup tournament. In this regard, this research effectively utilized the Ecoinvent version 3.7.1 and real construction data of Ras Abu Aboud stadium to quantify the human health impacts by applying the ReCiPe 2008 End point impact model under the Egalitarian perspective. The findings of this research presented the contributions of various life cycle phases such as the production of materials and resources, construction, operations, and end-of-life management. The results revealed that the majority of social impacts came from the production phase. The damage to human health from the construction and the operation phases were found to be significantly lower than that of the production phase by 85% and 98.6%. The end-of life management under a circular economy strategy was assessed to reveal the benefits of circular economy applications in sustainable construction from a pessimistic, and optimistic approach. Finally, a sensitivity analysis was conducted that identified human toxicity as the most sensitive impact category across the production and construction phase of the life cycle. While, climate change was the most sensitive among all the other impact groups in the operations phase. Later, the legacy aspect of reusable stadium design and construction fostered by Qatar's FIFA world cup organizing committee is presented and its potential benefits for the society are discussed. This research thus promotes professional growth in the area of sustainable building practices, supporting United Nations "Urban Development program" to promote environmental related research in Qatar and future FIFA host countries.