Tuesday, 30th November: The Irish Green Building Council (IGBC), with Support from the Land Development Agency (LDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), today launches a free online tool to assess the likely carbon impacts of different material approaches at an early stage in building design.
Construction and operation of the Irish built environment account for approximately a third of Ireland’s emissions, almost the same as agriculture. Progress has been made in reducing operational carbon emissions. These are the emissions associated with the energy used to operate buildings – e.g., lighting and heating. But to date, embodied emissions have been largely ignored. These emissions are associated with quarrying, manufacturing and transporting of building materials, as well as constructing buildings. They account for up to 11% of Ireland’s emissions.
Pat Barry, CEO of the Irish Green Building Council (IGBC) said: “The Carbon Designer for Ireland Tool addresses a gap in our decarbonisation strategy. It allows building designers to quickly assess and visualise the emissions linked to different types of construction techniques and materials choices at an early stage in a project. This is critical as the earlier the carbon is measured and optimised, the more reductions can be achieved”.
The Carbon Designer for Ireland tool was developed by the Irish Green Building Council, and OneClickLCA, with support from the Land Development Agency (LDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Michael Goan, Urban Design & Sustainability Manager at the Land Development Agency (LDA) said: “With up to half a million homes projected to be built nationally by 2040, the LDA is working to support the delivery of climate resilient low carbon developments. This free to use tool, will allow building professionals to calculate and report on the whole life-cycle carbon impact of a project to support early-stage optimisation of a building’s design. If widely used, the tool can lead to significant reductions in our carbon emissions”.
The launch follows on the recent publication of the Climate Action Plan 2021, which for the first time includes a commitment to introduce life-cycle assessment requirements for buildings and construction products. The European Taxonomy Regulation which aims to define harmonised criteria for sustainable investments also goes beyond energy efficiency and covers whole life carbon. Criteria from the Taxonomy are expected to be integrated into many new building projects, with investor appetite likely to be geared increasingly towards more sustainable opportunities as a result.
Joe Reilly, project officer at the EPA added: “The construction industry is both carbon and resource intensive. Decarbonising our building stock is critical to reach carbon neutrality. The EPA’s Green Enterprise: Innovation for a Circular Economy funding call is pleased to have supported the development of this free tool which allows for early design stage comparative analysis of embodied carbon in typical Irish construction typologies”.
The Carbon Designer for Ireland tool is suitable to inform the design at brief development and initial design stages in an RIAI 2030 Climate Challenge project. Released last month, the challenge calls on architects to evaluate the way they currently design and to make the changes needed to reduce carbon emissions across buildings’ whole life cycle.
