Irish Green Building Council launches Whole Life Carbon Roadmap

Welcome to the latest Varming Consulting Engineers Ltd. blog, where we bring you news from the world of building design. Today we’re here to tell you about a report on Whole Life Carbon in Construction & The Built Environment in Ireland produced by the Building in a Climate Emergency (BIACE) Research Lab at UCD for the Irish Green Building Council (IGBC). The report estimates the construction & operation of buildings account for as much as 37% of Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions – equal to agriculture.

Of this figure, 14% is embodied carbon related to material manufacturing and transportation, procurement, mining, and processing. The report highlights that this will greatly increase should existing infrastructure plans be carried out in their existing form for the rest of the decade – something that will negate much of the savings that have been made due to the current move to renewable energy.

IGBC Roadmap Has Been Developed

With a view to addressing this particular issue, the IGBC has worked closely with key stakeholders to develop a decarbonisation roadmap that outlines the legal, material and technical changes that need to be made as soon as possible in order to achieve 2030 EU emissions targets.

Back in 2021, the EU published a levels framework to create a common language for the assessment and reporting of whole-life building performance. This provides an indicator for the assessment of whole-life carbon production – which is tied to finance. What this means is that the more eco-friendly a construction project is, the simpler it is to find funding at lower levels of interest.

The roadmap – once implemented – will allow for carbon reporting for all construction projects and reductions in embodied carbon emissions will be driven directly by building regulations. The revised EPBD will, for the first time ever, include Whole-Life Carbon (WLC) assessments aligned with the level(s) framework.

These requirements already exist in the UK, Netherlands, Finland, Sweden and France, providing some insight into what things might look like in practice.

Supporting All Efforts to Create a Greener Industry

At Varming Consulting Engineers Ltd., we are fully behind all efforts being made to achieve EU emissions targets and as such, we’ll continue to deliver installations that meet the highest possible standards. You can see the many previous projects we’ve been involved with just by visiting us online at www.varming.ie.

Alternatively, to speak to us directly about your next building design project, just call us on 01 4872300 and we’ll do everything we can to assist.