Hi everyone! The team at Builders for Climate Action has recently completed two studies of A1-A3 embodied carbon for as-built low-rise homes in Canada.
The first report was for the cities of Nelson and Castlegar, BC, where we examined 34 as-built plans to determine the A1-A3 impacts, and compared these to the operational emissions models. On average, it will take homes in the area 23 years of operations before those emissions equal the embodied carbon of the materials.
There’s plenty more interesting results, including our finding that the level of energy efficiency (as measured by Steps 1-5 in the BC energy code) was not directly correlated to the embodied carbon.
You can find the report here: (PDF) Establishing the Average Upfront Material Carbon Emissions in New Low-Rise Residential Home Construction in the City of Nelson & the City of Castlegar