Carbon Accounting

The example report is available here:

Wonga Street House - Whole Life Carbon Account

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) & Embodied Carbon

Our success in developing Energy Efficiency in buildings lead us to a new challenge. We had to look beyond the operations of the house and try to see the sustainability of the Whole Home. In 2021, we took out multiple awards in the inaugural Canberra Low Carbon Housing Challenge. This inspired us to start diving deeper.

The approach developed by Light House is a Whole Life Carbon Account. It expands on The Footprint Company Calculator [1], including all modules outlined in EN 15804, becoming a complete Cradle to Grave Life Cycle Assessment.

Our goal is to produce clear and understandable carbon accounts, while providing advice and recommendations for reduction. Clarity is the primary issue with the application of Life Cycle Assessments in the built environment. We report the total in tonnes of carbon dioxide and have easy-to-interpret breakdowns of the data.

Within the industry, the different parts of a building's life cycle are broken into modules. Module A, the “product stage, considers the production of the materials that go into a building and the construction of the structure. Module B, the “use stage”, address the impacts of using the building (often referred to as operational energy and water). Module C, the “end-of-life stage”, considers the demolition and disposal or recycling of materials. Module D refers to anything beyond the scope of the assessment.  

This information can directly show the environmental impacts of design decisions, and highlight hotspots, where the most change can be made. For the first time, a designer is able to see the whole picture of the building.

The numbers produced through the example report are within the expected ranges for residential construction outside of Europe and America [2]. We have also chosen to follow the current, as of 2022, precedent of not including either Biogenic Carbon or Solar Panel Export Credit [3]. This means that our report is readable, and doesn’t hide behind Large PV systems, or timber construction.

We are now, finally, able to create either a simple Embodied Carbon report or a Whole Life Carbon Assessment, for any residential house in Aus. We are hoping to continue with more projects, continuing to help grow the Building Science Industry in its next step for a sustainable future.

References

1. Net zero carbon calculation tools (2022) The Footprint Company. Available at: https://footprintcompany.com

2. Satola, D.; Röck, M.; Houlihan-Wiberg, A.; Gustavsen, A. (2021) Life Cycle GHG Emissions of Residential Buildings in Humid Subtropical and Tropical Climates: Systematic Review and Analysis. Buildings 2021, 11, 6. https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/buildings1101000

3. Röck, M. et al. (2022) “Towards indicative baseline and decarbonization pathways for Embodied Life Cycle GHG emissions of buildings across Europe,” IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, 1078(1), p. 012055. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1088/1755- 1315/1078/1/012055.