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Embodied Carbon of Sustainable Technologies

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Embodied Carbon in Buildings

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Abstract

There is global emphasis on the creation of zero energy and therefore zero carbon buildings. The vast majority of work is focused on reducing the so-called ‘operational’ energy in buildings, i.e. investigating methods to reduce energy consumption within the building and using more efficient equipment and source energy from zero carbon renewable energy sources. There is less work undertaken on measuring the ‘embodied’ energy of a building, i.e. the life cycle impact of materials and products. Moreover, there is even less research into the impact of new sustainable technologies that are used to replace existing systems. It is this latter point that is investigated in this chapter. The results show that the impact of new sustainable technologies is significantly less than conventional systems, when compared on a whole-life basis. However, each development and building is unique with a combination of technologies commonly used; therefore, generalisations should be avoided. It is recommended that it is mandatory for all sustainable technologies to have an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) to enable the decision maker to make the best informed choice possible.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Liverpool School of Architecture (LSA), University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK

    S. Finnegan

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  1. S. Finnegan
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Correspondence to S. Finnegan .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. REBEL (Resource Efficient Built Environment Lab), Edinburgh Napier University, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

    Francesco Pomponi

  2. School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland

    Catherine De Wolf

  3. School of Engineering and Innovation, Open University, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom

    Alice Moncaster

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Finnegan, S. (2018). Embodied Carbon of Sustainable Technologies. In: Pomponi, F., De Wolf, C., Moncaster, A. (eds) Embodied Carbon in Buildings. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72796-7_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72796-7_13

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