Measuring embodied carbon for building decarbonization
Introduction
A built environment is described as the cumulative indication of all the man-made infrastructural elements such as buildings, transportation systems, public utilities, communication networks, and public and private amenities. As per the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GABC) report, the construction industry consumes 35% of global energy utilization and is responsible for 38% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
On the other hand, atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions continue to rise. As per Statista carbon dioxide emissions had increased by 60% in 2023 compared to the rate that prevailed in 1990. Currently, atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions are nearing 40 billion metric tons, clocked at 37.15 billion metric tons in 2022.
Pathways of decarbonizing the built environment
Following are a few ways by which the embodied carbon and operational carbon of a whole building life cycle can be mitigated or restricted.
Mitigating embodied carbon:
Mitigating operational carbon:
Definition of embodied carbon
Embodied carbon of a building material refers to the total amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions associated with the:
? Production
? Transportation
? Installation / Construction
? Maintenance (replacement / refurbishment)
? Disposal of that material
According to European Standard EN 15978, embodied carbon encompasses all the emissions generated throughout the material's lifecycle, i.e., A1 to C4 except B1, B5, and B6 in below illustration.
Calculation of embodied carbon of a product
I Data collection
Energy use and emissions regarding:
Raw material extraction – Mining, logging or harvesting
Manufacturing – Processing and production
Transportation | Construction
Maintenance – Retrofit / Replace / Refurbish
End-of-life – Disposal, recycling or reuse
II Conversion of data
Convert energy use and emissions data into CO2 equivalent emissions using conversion factors. These factors represent the amount of CO2 emitted per unit of energy consumed or material produced.
III Calculation of total embodied carbon
Sum up the CO2 equivalent emissions from each life cycle stage to obtain the total embodied carbon for the material.
IV Normalization
Normalize the embodied carbon data by expressing it in standardized units (e.g., kgCO2e per unit of material mass or volume). This is to facilitate comparisons between different materials or building components.
Calculation example for M20 Concrete mix
In the above example, water is excluded from carbon conversion factoring. This was due to the following reasons:
Benefits of evaluating embodied carbon for building materials
Evaluation tools for determining embodied carbon
I Software applications
(i) One Click LCA
One Click LCA is a software tool used for life cycle assessment (LCA) of buildings and infrastructure projects.
It simplifies the often complex and time-consuming process of assessing the environmental impacts of construction projects by providing a user-friendly interface and automated calculations. Features of One Click LCA software are:
? Whole building life cycle assessment
? Built-in databases
? Environmental impact categories: GWP + 6
? Automation
? Integration with design
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? Certification compliance
? Reporting and documentation
Apart from One Click LCA, several other LCA software programs are also preferred in the construction industry.
II Carbon calculators
(i) Build carbon neutral - Construction carbon calculator
The Construction Carbon Calculator estimates embodied carbon.
This calculator provides an estimate that establishes a base number to clarify the carbon implications of the construction process - to be used as a tool to address the reduction of that footprint. The results you obtain will be an estimation and approximate - accurate within 25%, plus or minus.
(ii) Kaleidoscope - Embodied carbon design tool
Kaleidoscope is designed to supplement, not replace, whole-building LCA in early design phases. It is meant to be a reference for the order of magnitude of early LCA decisions, allowing designers to quickly compare the embodied carbon impacts of various standard building systems and design optiSSons.?
(iii) Carbon designer 3D
The "Carbon Designer 3D" feature within One Click LCA is a sophisticated tool designed to assess and visualize the embodied carbon emissions associated with building materials and construction elements in 3D models.
This feature is particularly useful for architects, engineers, and sustainability consultants who want to understand and mitigate the carbon footprint of their building designs.
III Web applications
(i) EDGE App
The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, created the EDGE (Excellence in Design for Greater Efficiencies) App as a cloud-based platform to promote green building practices globally.
EDGE is designed to make it faster, easier, and more affordable to design and certify resource-efficient and sustainable buildings, particularly in emerging markets.
(ii) EC3 - Embodied carbon in construction calculator
Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator (EC3) is a free, easy-to-use tool for benchmarking, assessing, and reducing construction material upfront supply chain emissions.
EC3 employs construction estimates and/or BIM models to calculate building material quantities and a large database of digitized, third-party certified Environmental Product Declarations. EC3 can be integrated into the design and procurement phases of a construction project to assess embodied carbon emissions and provide low-carbon choices.
(iii) Revalu
Revalu is a software platform designed to support sustainable architecture by improving access to material data and providing tools for decarbonization in the built environment.
Materials listed in this platform is applicable for western part of the world. Anyhow Indian originated products are slowly emerging into revalu. As of now 25 Indian originated products.
IV Mobile applications
As per journal article authored by Anderson Alves de Carvalho and Elaine Aparecida da Silva, the following are the currently available mobile apps (Android & Apple store) applications.
Summary
? Decarbonization has multiple routes to get achieved, measuring embodied carbon is the 1st step to begin.
? Embodied carbon can be calculated by multiplying the material quantity with the carbon conversion factor.
? Databases of embodied carbon conversion factors are fed into a computer programme and serving us as either a web app or software.
? From software, web apps to mobile apps, western world data are overwhelming for building material’s embodied carbon and Indian scenarios are still under emerging state only.
? More registrations with global EPD platforms can help in reflecting Indian-origin products in these tools.
Reference
[3] Embodied Carbon Building Code: An overlay of model code language for limiting the climate impact of building products (newbuildings.org)
[4] About the Construction Carbon Calculator. || BuildCarbonNeutral.org - A CO2 calculator for your whole building project.
[9] PCA - The Portland Cement Association - America's Cement Manufacturer EC3 FAQ - building-transparency.org (buildingtransparency.org)
[10] Results produced while using Generative AI tools