The New Zealand Green Building Council (NZGBC) and sustainability firm thinkstep-anz have released a new calculator for embodied carbon, paving the way for the building and construction industry to reduce emissions from building materials and supplies.
thinkstep-anz’s Hotspot or not? The carbon footprint of NZ's built environment in 2018 revealed buildings and infrastructure contributes up to 20% of New Zealand’s carbon emissions. Embodied carbon - stemming from the materials and products a building is made from – accounts for around half of these emissions. The industry has since been asking for a way to measure and reduce their footprint.
“Our industry has become increasingly aware of the pollution caused by the manufacture and production of our materials and products. Awareness is all well and good, but we need to actually start measuring the carbon footprint of our projects robustly so we can reduce it as much as possible,” says NZGBC chief executive Andrew Eagles.
The Green Building Council has recently updated its flagship Green Star certification scheme for commercial buildings, adding a requirement to reduce embodied carbon by at least 10% compared to a standard reference building.
“Several of our members and other industry bodies have developed embodied carbon calculators. This is a fantastic starting point, now we need to ensure they align. If we’re going to tackle our emissions it’s essential our sector has a consistent and comparable approach to measuring emissions,” Andrew says.
The NZGBC and thinkstep-anz have worked with a sector reference group from across the industry to help establish a robust approach to the calculation of embodied carbon and the methodology behind it.
“Through these discussions we’ve identified a need to develop an industry-wide approach to support the definition, scope and calculation of embodied carbon. We hope that the calculator and supporting documentation will help provide a consistent platform to measure embodied carbon while the Government finalises the Building for Climate Change programme,“ thinkstep-anz’s Technical Director Jeff Vickers says.
The freely available calculator has been released alongside a guide on how to use it, as well as a methodology so projects who want to ensure consistency with other calculators already on the market can do so.
The guidance is currently open for industry feedback through until 11 November 2022