Construction

TransFIRe researchers have co-authored a paper in which they quantified and benchmarked the material use and embodied carbon to the deliver the 'core and shell' of typical residential and non-residential buildings. In this paper embodied carbon emissions, equivalent to greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), are released during the production of materials and construction processes rather than when it is in use. They are an essential measurement to deliver carbon neutral buildings. With the government’s 2050 net-zero deadline approaching and the pressure to decarbonise increasing, it is vital that ways of minimising levels of embodied carbon are tackled. The detailed bottom-up approach taken by the researchers showed that, compared to the top-down analysis, the embodied carbon emissions were underestimated by up to 20%. Combining their detailed bottom-up model with top-down analysis and other material consumption data, the researchers found that in 2018 (the year in which the most recent available high-level [...]