Defining and Aligning:
Whole Life Carbon & Embodied Carbon
With the Government's requirements to achieve Net Zero emissions in the UK by 2050, there remains confusion regarding the implications of this for the built environment. Net zero performance should include the consideration of Embodied Carbon and Whole Life Carbon but in order to do this we need to combat a lack of definition, consistent measurement, mis-aligned benchmarks and performance claims.
Following the release of the Embodied Carbon Primer in 2020, LETI has been consulting with industry groups, including CIBSE, RIBA, IStructE, the GLA and the Whole Life Carbon Network to align definitions, scopes, measurement methodologies and targets. This page contains downloads of additional resources to guide and help resolve these inconsistencies:
→ The one-pager summaries introduce the concepts of Embodied Carbon and Whole Life Carbon, as well as the industry standards that govern our measurement of the metrics. In addition, they set out key principles to reducing built environment carbon emissions through strategic project and design initiatives.
→ The Embodied Carbon Target Alignment document sets out an embodied carbon rating system that can be used to track the urgent performance improvements needed from now until 2030 and comes with a set of reporting templates to ensure consistent reporting scopes are used. This alignment document outlines total embodied carbon targets, as well as upfront carbon targets.
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→ The Carbon Definitions for the Built Environment, Buildings and Infrastructure provides a common set of definitions that has been developed by the Whole Life Carbon Network (WLCN) in collaboration with LETI. Results from the 2020 embodied and whole life carbon LETI survey, showed that LETI membership overwhelming felt that Net Zero Carbon performance had to be determined by first minimising emissions to a target level before offsetting the residual emissions. This has been implemented within the net zero definitions in this document.
This suite of 4 documents should be read together, along with the net zero operational one pager, to understand operational, embodied and Whole Life Carbon and how to achieve a net zero ‘Paris Proof’ approach which dictates that the Built Environment Industry should only use the limited amount of carbon – including energy and material resources – apportioned to it, in order for the UK economy as a whole to reach net zero emissions by 2050 and ensure best efforts to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
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Embodied Carbon Reporting Template:
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To help understand the embodied carbon in your project, we have created a template that helps place your project against the LETI benchmarks, giving an indicative rating. This is a self-certifying process and requires you to complete all the elements of the template. If you do use the ratings given by this template, we request that you provide the underlying data in the form of this template to those who ask. This will enable the whole industry to improve our benchmarks, as well as provide an informal peer-review process.
Contributors
One Pagers
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Jane Anderson, LCA Construction
Louisa Bowles, Hawkins\Brown
Alina Congreve, Independent Researcher
Duncan Cox, Thornton Tomasetti
Tim den Dekker, Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios
Volkan Doda, Atelier Ten
Mirko Farnetani, Hilson Moran
Julie Godefroy, CIBSE
Ben Hopkins, Bennetts Associates
Helen Hough, Brydon Wood
Jess Hrivnak, RIBA
Raheela Kahn-Fitzgerald, Hawkins\Brown
Susan Mantle, Heyne Tillet Steel
Ellie Marsh, University of Cambridge/ Foster + Partners
Michelle Sanchez, PDP London
Kat Scott, dRMM
Leighton Smith
Simon Sturgis, Targeting Zero
Joe Taylor
Elaine Toogood, Concrete Centre
Johanna Jarvinen, One Click LCA
Definitions
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Jane Anderson, LCA Construction
Clara Bagenal George, Elementa Consulting
Louisa Bowles, Hawkins\Brown
Karl Desai, UKGBC
Michal Drewniok, University of Bath
Mark Edwards, Arcadis
Jannik Giesekam, University of Leeds
Louise Hamot, Integral Group
Mina Hasman, Skidmore Owings & Merrill
Ben Hopkins, Bennetts Associates
Maria Smith, Buro Happold
Simon Sturgis, Targeting Zero
Simon Wyatt, Cundall
Embodied Carbon Target Alignment
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Louisa Bowles, Hawkins\Brown
Qian Li, Cundall
Joe Jack Williams, Feilden Clegg Bradley
Ben Hopkins, Bennetts Associates
Will Arnold, IStructE
Pat Herman, BRE
Publications launch webinar
Defining and Aligning: Embodied carbon targets and net zero definitions webinar
Speakers & Panellists:
Louisa Bowles, Hawkins\Brown
Qian Li, Cundall
Joe Jack Williams, Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios
Alex Tait, RIBA
Simon Sturgis, Targeting Zero
Karl Desai, UK GBC
Ben Hopkins, Bennetts Associates
Will Arnold, IStructE
Clara Bagenal George, Elementa Consulting
FAQs
LETI is collaborative by nature and is very interested in your input. Please submit your queries and/or comments regarding the Whole Life Carbon and Embodied Carbon one-pagers, Embodied Carbon Targets Alignment and Carbon Definitions for the Built Environment by filling in our short survey below. This will help us to collate a list of common FAQs to add to our website.
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