With public concern about ecology and climate change, sustainable and green strategies have become one of the key factors influencing people's decisions. Green building as an important sustainable development direction in daily life, we attach great importance to its performance in low carbon and environmental protection.
Embodied carbon is a key indicator for assessing green buildings. The lower the embodied carbon in a building, the better the building's sustainability performance. Let's take an in-depth look at what embodied carbon is and how it can be reduced.
What is embodied carbon？
Embodied carbon refers to the carbon footprint of a building space during the construction phase of a building, which includes carbon emissions from raw materials or products during manufacturing, transport, installation, maintenance and disposal, as well as during the construction of the project.
This article will also compare the embodied carbon requirements of RESET, LEED, BREEAM and China Green Building Standdard, so that we can have a better understanding of what embodied carbon is and how to reduce it.
©RESET
1. Mandatory/Optional
As a category of auditing, the first step is to examine whether auditing of embodied carbon is mandatory in each building standard, so it is divided into mandatory and optional items, which are explained in detail below:
Mandatory: This refers to the review of whether or not embodied carbon is a requirement or prerequisite for obtaining certification to a building standard.
Optional: This means that the building standard does not mandate the provision of embodied carbon results as a requirement for certification to the building standard. Additional points can be awarded to projects that provide relevant carbon data reports.
In particular, RESET embodied carbon certification is a mandatory requirement for auditing embodied carbon. For some of the other standards, an embodied carbon audit can help to gain additional points, but is not a requirement to achieve certification.
2. Carbon emission reduction
Carbon emission reduction targets refer to whether the standards will establish specific carbon emission reduction targets or use baseline data to compare the project's embodied carbon performance and score or add points.
● RESET: None
RESET does not set specific carbon emission reduction targets, but RESET still uses the project's embodied carbon data for internal baseline data comparisons and comparisons with industry averages.
● LEED: Available & Bonus Points
Additional points are awarded for projects that undergo a life cycle assessment demonstrating a reduction in global warming potential of at least 20% compared to the baseline project, as well as demonstrating a reduction of at least 10% in the other two impact categories. The baseline project and the project being assessed must be of comparable size, function, service life and building type.
● BREEAM: None
The objective of BREEAM is primarily to measure and collect embodied carbon data and use it to establish future baseline data. Currently, BREEAM does not provide any clear guidance on carbon emission reduction targets.
● China Green Building Standard: None
Carbon emission reduction targets are not specifically mentioned.
Zhejiang Project: 6-story building made of bamboo
3. Actual material data
Actual material data refers to whether the carbon calculation is derived from the actual materials used in the project, in order to show the most realistic embodied carbon footprint.
Carbon calculations for this type of project should refer to the project bill of materials and the quantities should be consistent with the actual construction.
It is important to note that the results produced by the carbon calculation software at the design stage are not considered to be actual material data, as the modelled results may differ from actual material usage.
All other standards do not require the use of actual material data for implied carbon audits, with the exception of RESET, which requires the calculation of a project's implied carbon footprint to be derived from the actual materials used in the project.
In addition, RESET has a unique on-site auditing system where the actual materials used in the project are audited and cross-referenced to the list of materials used in the calculation to ensure that the data is true.
4. Total embodied carbon data disclosure
Total embodied carbon data disclosure refers to whether the final embodied carbon data of a project will be shared with investors and clients, or even made public.
The more embodied carbon data available to the industry, the better the baseline data can be established for reference and comparative benchmarking, helping the construction industry to better manage and reduce carbon emissions.
RESET's final report provides projects with shareable total embodied carbon data that can be disclosed at the client's discretion. RESET's reports and metrics not only include a project's total embodied carbon footprint results, but the data is also compared to industry averages to provide a more complete picture of a project's performance.
For other building standards, there is no clear indication as to whether the embodied carbon data should be disclosed.
So, in order to better reduce embodied carbon in building construction and create a green life, Bamboo will also maximise its potential for sustainable development.
In his study, Professor Xiao Yan noted that preliminary calculations based on carbon emissions reveal that the bamboo building demonstrates excellent carbon emission reduction performance. Particularly notewor-thy is its carbon emissions during the production stage, which are only 25.35% of that of reinforced concrete structures under equivalent conditions. Current data suggests that bamboo structures in engineering significantly save energy and reduce carbon com-pared to concrete structures.
Carbon emission reduction actions
According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency，the U.S. industrial sector is linked to nearly a third of annual U.S. greenhouse (GHG) emissions, and the manufacturing of construction materials and products accounts for 11% of annual global GHG emissions.
Reducing embodied carbon from construction materials is essential to effectively addressing climate change.
To help achieve net zero emissions for the federal government by 2050, the Biden-Harris Administration launched the Federal Buy Clean Initiative, which leverages federal procurement and funding to catalyze markets for American-made lower embodied carbon construction materials while making historic investments to upgrade U.S. transportation, buildings and energy infrastructure.
EPA is joined by twelve other federal agencies on the Buy Clean Task Force, who together account for 90% of all federally-financed and purchased construction materials.
Agencies are working to identify actions to reduce GHG emissions and climate change impacts comprehensively, including optimizing salvage, reuse, and low embodied carbon materials, as well as strategies such as siting buildings and infrastructure to minimize disruptions to land use and restore natural ecosystems, for example.
©Government of Canada
The Government of Canada has launched a "Green Government Strategy" to address climate change. The Government has introduced the "Standard on the Disclosure of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and the Setting of Reduction Targets" and "Standard on Embodied Carbon in Construction".
The emission reduction targets are 40 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 and net zero by 2050.
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