Embodied carbon 1 Whole lifecycle
renewables and more on the planning chain. ‘We need to develop policy documents and we also need to develop and agree on protocols and methodologies.’ To complicate matters further, constructing buildings
that are designed to use less operational energy tends to lead to more embodied carbon being used compared to conventional buildings, Battle argues. Embodied carbon is an issue that property developer
British Land has taken on board, developing its own approach to assessing the carbon footprint of its portfolio of buildings. Sarah Cary, sustainable developments executive at British Land, has found that the materials used account for a large chunk of embodied carbon in a construction project. Questioning whether Part L of the Building
Regulations goes far enough, she asks: ‘Do we need to go beyond the Part L approach? I don’t think the calculation methodologies are there yet. I don’t think the transparency about the data is there yet.’
Cary also believes that, as a company, British Land
now needs to think more about whether it needs to completely redevelop a building because of the ‘hidden’ embodied carbon created in constructing new ones. She adds: ‘It’s got to be a partnership approach, we’ve
got to look at both operational as well as embodied to understand how they work together in many cases.’ However, it is not just embodied carbon that industry
needs to consider; water, too, is set to become a serious source of concern for industry, according to Battle: ‘While we’re all worried about carbon, the next thing is whether water is going to be as important. We’re now beginning to do embodied water analysis on buildings. We’ve just finished a project for M&S and there was a 50/50 split between the embodied and operational water footprint: ‘The issue about water is that, when we emit carbon, it’s the world’s problem, and when we take water from the ground there’s a very local scarcity issue and it can affect businesses.’ l
Ropemaker Place: BER* calculation vs predicted total carbon emissions tCO2e/m2
of GIA*
4.000 3.500 3.000 2.500 2.000 1.500 1.000 0.500
3.733 1.018 2.435 1.018 2.716 1.418
Ropemaker Place (BER*)
Ropemaker (predicted consumption)
Embodied Carbon
Operational Carbon
100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%
3.733 27% 42%
Embodied Carbon
73% 58%
Operational Carbon
I don’t think
the calculation methodologies in Part L are there yet; nor is transparency about the data – Sarah Cary
Ropemaker Place (BER)
Ropemaker (predicted consumption)
*BER = building emission rate, GIA = gross internal area
British Land has calculated the carbon footprint of commercial property Ropemaker Place in London. The two left-hand bars show, first, the calculated BER and, second, Deloitte’s predicted emissions. The two right-hand bars show these figures by breakdown between embodied and operational carbon
British Land: carbon footprint of entire portfolio tCO2
tCO2 e
180,000 160,000 140,000 120,000 100,000 80,000 60,000 40,000 20,000
e 84,421 45,251
Embodied Carbon
Operational Carbon
80,382 76,530 FY08 FY09
180,000 160,000 140,000 120,000 100,000 80,000 60,000 40,000 20,000
8,405 4,211
71,805
4,505 2,257
38,489
Delivery Onsite
Activites
Embodied Carbon
80,382 76,530 FY08 FY09 British Land has assessed the embodied and operational carbon footprint of its portfolio for 2008 and 2009 (see panel on facing page)
www.cibsejournal.com July 2010 CIBSE Journal 33
Operational Carbon
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