Find out more about Arup's winning entry for the Embodied Carbon category at the CIBSE Building Performance Awards 2023

奥雅纳 won the Embodied Carbon - Consultant award at this year's CIBSE Building Performance Awards for their significant investment in understanding the embodied carbon of building services and assessing design options with the lowest impact.

Arup's entry was coordinated by mechanical engineer, Maria Benazzo . Benazzo co-manages the Building Services Sustainability Hub (BSSH) in Arup with two other building services engineers, Sarah Bousquet (public health engineer) and Rowan Bell-Bentley (mechanical engineer). In the past year, the group has focused on the topic of embodied carbon and carried out research initiatives with the aim of upskill building services engineers and disseminate the acquired knowledge across the firm. The judges were impressed by how knowledge is shared across the firm to drive best practice.

The Building Services Sustainability Hub developed a methodology adopted across Arup to assess embodied carbon for building services that builds TM65 mid-level calculation by including an estimate for stages A5, B4 and B5. The calculation spreadsheet enables designers and consultants across the consultancy to quickly and consistently calculate embodied carbon for building services.

The team also led ground-breaking work on embodied carbon benchmarks for MEP. These show how systems compare in terms of kgCO2e/kW and kgCO2e/m^2 of the building, informing which design will minimise emissions according to building type and shape. This work fed into Zero, the platform Arup developed as part of its COP26 commitment to carry out whole life carbon assessments on all building projects.

In addition, BSSH has set up a repository on Arup’s intranet to collate information obtained from manufacturers for TM65 forms or Environmental Product Declarations. This not only reduces the amount of time on projects spent reaching out to manufacturers for information, but also helps with understanding equipment emissions, which can be beneficial at early stages, when the manufacturer has yet to be appointed.

To disseminate knowledge about the work that has been done, Benazzo, Bousquet and Bell-Bentley have given numerous presentations to teams across Arup. They are also planning workshops to bring together everyone in the consultancy who assesses embodied carbon to develop a strategy for building services.

The judges noted a wide variety of entries in this category – from calculation methodologies and the development of technical guidance to policy – with applications at project level and company-wide.

There was also a clear inclination to consider the embodied carbon impacts of building services alongside their operational impact. This, the judges added, is really encouraging, as is the willingness of applicants to share data with CIBSE for the betterment of the industry.

Find out more about the CIBSE Building Performance Awards and see all of the 2023 winners

If you are interested to hear more about their journey, lessons learned from case studies and the challenges that the industry faces, watch the CIBSE #GrowYourKnowledge webinar, ‘Less is more: building services through a whole life carbon lens’. The webinar took place on 25 May 2023, with Benazzo, Bousquet and Bell-Bentley presenting alongside Stephen Hill (Arup) winner of the ‘Engineer of the Year Award’.