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feature
schools, colleges & universities
get ready for embodied carbon
Richard Aylen, Technical Manager at Junckers, takes a look at the new embodied carbon
The way a product or material affects global warming is usually measured by the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that are generated during its lifetime. For many years the construction industry has been trying to reduce its effect upon global warming. We use phrases such as net zero carbon and carbon neutral, so let’s look at what these terms mean. A person, company or country is carbon neutral if they balance the carbon dioxide they release into the atmosphere through their everyday activities with the amount they absorb or remove from the atmosphere. This is also called net zero carbon emissions or net zero carbon, because overall no carbon dioxide is added to the atmosphere. What does carbon neutral mean and what is net zero? For our discussion, there are two main categories of carbon. The first is operational carbon, which is mainly related to energy used for heating, lighting etc. We have already made headway in reducing operational carbon through renewable energy and heating our buildings more efficiently. It is becoming harder to find new ways
of reducing operational carbon, so attention is being directed towards reducing embodied carbon. This is the carbon generated when construction products are manufactured, transported, installed and disposed of, and from this you can measure greenhouse gas emissions, and the effect upon global warming. An understanding of embodied carbon is a useful tool for any specifier who is involved with low carbon design. Until now it was almost unheard of for a client to impose specific limits on embodied carbon, but this is changing. In Scotland the Scottish Futures Trust scheme for school building includes an upper limit for embodied carbon of 600kg per square metre of floor area. Later this year, in their 2025 Output Specification for new school buildings, England’s Department for Education (DfE) will impose a maximum limit of 550kg of embodied carbon per square metre of floor area. The DfE will also introduce reporting of biogenic carbon levels. Biogenic carbon is locked up in the fabric of the material by biological processes, best illustrated by the way trees collect carbon as they grow. Carbon is stored in the wood itself until it is burned or it decomposes.
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