Hello - I was reading the LBC Zero Carbon certification and I noticed it says: “The total embodied carbon of the project building may not exceed 500kg CO2e/m2”
Does anyone know where the 500 is coming from? not judging, IO am just trying to understand the research behind that.
Thanks,
I don’t know the research behind that, but 500 CO2e/m2 is a ridiculously high (lenient / easy) number to target, given the average typical building is somewhere around 400, and closer to 300 for low-rise and residential structures. 75 is the target a city in Canada set, at or below which one’s building permit fees were waived. Would love to hear from someone on the inside at LBC who helped to set that target, and what their rationale was.
Hello David -
Can you share with me where I can read the Canadian benchmark you are referring to?
Thanks,
and more: https://www.buildersforclimateaction.org/uploads/1/5/9/3/15931000/bfca-enercan-report-web_08_21.pdf
Hello YureSuarez,
The 500kg C02 e/m2 threshold is based on the 2017 Embodied Carbon Benchmark Study conducted by the Carbon Leadership Forum.
I find that because embodied carbon intensity varies significantly based on building height and use that yes, the target can be easy to achieve for some types of buildings, but challenging for others!
I also like the LETI embodied carbon target alignment as a reference point: https://www.leti.london/_files/ugd/252d09_a45059c2d71043cdbcffc539f942e602.pdf
It has specific A1-A5 targets (matches ILFI’s Zero Carbon scope), whereas the CLF data includes a variety of scopes.