Context
The European Commission needed a roadmap for reducing whole life carbon of buildings, and a roadmap needs to know where it is starting from and which levers actually move the destination.
Insights
- Built the archetype model. A representation of the EU building stock detailed enough to distinguish between policy options, and coarse enough to run to 2050.
- Tested the levers. Renovation rate, material efficiency, material decarbonisation and operational performance, separately and in combination.
- Set out the trajectory. What each combination does to the stock’s emissions over time, and which combinations fall short.
Impact
The work fed the Commission’s roadmap for reducing whole life carbon of buildings, and the evidence base behind the whole life carbon provisions now in the revised Energy Performance of Buildings Directive.
Project page: whole life carbon reduction.
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Publications on this project
- Supporting the development of a roadmap for the reduction of whole life carbon of buildings - final technical report
- SLiCE: an open building data model for scalable high-definition life cycle engineering, environmental hotspot analysis and dynamic impact assessment
- SLiCE hotspot analysis tool
- Environmental modelling of building stocks - an integrated review of life cycle-based assessment models to support EU policy making
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