How to pursue the Whole Life Carbon vision: a method to assess buildings’ Embodied Carbon

The design and construction of CO2-neutral buildings by 2050 will be possible through many actions and strategies, including new metrics and indicators that would contribute to the accounting process for greenhouse gas emissions over the building’s life cycle. Among the range of helpful indicators is Embodied Carbon (EC). Standards and references describe EC characteristics and possible uses both in the design stage and in other building life cycle stages, at the same time, they point out a need for methods of building CO2-equivalent emissions calculation. The paper deals with research titled “decarbonisation tools” aimed at providing common definitions and at developing an EC accounting method. The main phases of the investigation work are reported. Further, the paper describes some future developments and outlooks for making EC an indicator understandable to several stakeholders of the construction sector as well as user-friendly from the early stage of the design process.