Buildings House a Hefty Carbon Footprint

Shelter will always play a role in society, so identifying low carbon buildings is critical in meeting the Paris Commitments. As more societies develop, the number of new buildings is expected to double globally over the next 40 years, according to the USGBC. Unfortunately, the Building industry is responsible for nearly 40% of all global GHG emissions. Of this, 70% come from energy use from operating the building over it’s entire life cycle. These emissions are generated from the buildings use, meaning they can be reduced at any point in time and for buildings that already exist. The remaining 30% comes from embodied carbon of the building materials.  Embodied carbon, simply put, is the amount of carbon emissions that are a result of the production, manufacturing, transportation, and installation of building materials and components. These emissions are generated before the building is completed, meaning architects and designers need to consider this in the design phase in order to reduce embodied carbon.

Local Governments Take Action

Governments all around the world are enacting policies to address both operation emissions and embodied carbon of the building industry. Neither task is easy, and solving both with require engagement from teams that support all stages of building, including design, planning, construction, and retrofits. Let’s explore how some governments are addressing this challenge.

New York Sets Efficiency Standards for Large Buildings

In order to be carbon neutral by 2050, New York City enacted Local Law 97 in 2019 to curb emissions from buildings. This law states that most buildings larger than 25,000 sq ft must adopt new energy efficiency standards and emission limits no later than 2024. These limits will expand into the future as to help the city meet its buildings emission reduction goals of 40% by 2030, and 80% by 2050.

California AB 2446 Tackles Embodied Carbon

In September 2022, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law AB 2446, which whelps strengthen California Air Resource Board’s strategy of reducing embodied carbon in buildings by 20% by 2030, and 40% by 2035. This regulation calls for a few significant adjustments for the building industry, including:

• Non residential buildings >10,000 sq ft or residential buildings with  >5 units must report an LCA with the carbon intensity of each product.
• Non residential buildings >10,000 sq ft or residential buildings with  >5 units require Environmental Product Declarations to be submitted by material manufacturers.
• Use of low-carbon building materials, assuming no significant cost increase.
• California Air Resources Board to research, identify, and prioritize actions and programs from the federal government to lower the cost of low embodied carbon materials.

European Policies Tackling Embodied Carbon

While California AB 2446 is the first of its kind in the US. Similar city-wide policies exist in other markets, such as Oslo, Norway and Vancouver, British Columbia. In the EU five countries have embraced policies to monitor and/or reduct embodied carbon emissions. Denmark, Finland, France, The Netherlands, and Sweden all have their own. RE2020 in France, for example, requires embodied emissions to be reduced by ~35% by 2031. Sweden recently started requiring new buildings to have embodied carbon estimates submitted for a permit, though no reduction targets have been finalized yet.

How to Navigate Evolving Policies

There has been much research into making buildings more sustainable and efficient. Some of the most widely recognized building standards include LEED Certification and BREEAM Certification. These standards score building performance in various environmental categories, and depending on the score, the appropriate certification level is awarded. These standards recognize that each building is different, so there is flexibility on achieving certifications, especially for lower levels. LEEDS are BREEAM are industry recognized benchmarks that not only position buildings for meeting low-carbon performance and targets, but also have a proven record of saving money and increasing profitability over time.

Staying organized with detailed construction, material, and operational plans is the best way to take control of emissions from buildings and staying ahead of any reduction strategy. Software can accelerate this initiative by balancing the most up-to-date emissions factors for high embodied carbon building materials, and modeling energy and emissions savings over time.The SINAI platform maintains over 40,000 emissions factors and has extensive experience calculating GHG Footprints, and will enable you to model out both emissions and financial savings of reducing emissions of your buildings.