Measurement and reporting tools

This section captures the various tools and techniques that have been developed or are under development when measuring carbon across the built environment life cycle. This section includes tools to measure the carbon “footprint” of the construction process; construction materials and products.

It also seeks to identify tools that enable options to be compared – including whole-life approaches as well as the tools that seek to reconcile carbon impacts with other parameters – whether environmental, economic, or social. It is important to develop standard models for counting carbon across the sectors.

Selected briefings

1) University of Bath: Inventory of carbon and Energy version 1.6a
Link: http://people.bath.ac.uk/cj219/

Professor Geoff Hammond and Craig Jones from the Department of Mechanical Engineering (University of Bath) have been working on a database to determine the embodied energy and carbon of a large number of building materials. The database has been used to release an Inventory of Carbon & Energy (ICE). The Inventory of Carbon and Energy (ICE) is available for download as a pdf file.

2) Stockholm Environment Institute, University of York: A Comparative carbon footprint analysis of on-site construction and an off-site manufacturerd house
Download (pdf)

This report considers how to achieve low greenhouse gas emissions in the housing sector (construction and direct energy), Scenarios compare conventional construction and off-site manufacturing.

3) Environment Agency: Carbon calculator for construction activities
Link: http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/business/sectors/37543.aspx

This is an excel spreadsheet for calculating the embodied carbon emissions of materials and that associated with their transportation.

4) BSI: Assessing the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of goods and services (PAS 2050)
Download: PAS 2050:2008 - Specification for the assessment of the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of goods and services (pdf)
Download: The guide to PAS 2050: How to assess the carbon footprint of goods and services (pdf)

PAS 2050 is a specification for a method for measuring the embodied greenhouse gas emissions from goods and services.

This website is managed and maintained by CIRIA

1.

Policy & regulation

2.

Measurement and reporting tools

3.

Building performance

4.

Infrastructure performance

5.

Procurement, clients and ownership

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Generation and storage

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Macro-scale issues