Understanding the emissions created during both the construction and lifetime of a building will be vital to achieving a sustainable built environment. Tackling upfront embodied carbon — emissions produced through the manufacturing and construction stages of a building — has emerged as fundamental piece in the carbon reduction puzzle.
Tackling upfront carbon in collaboration across the value chain was the subject of a panel attended by thinkstep-anz’s Nicole Sullivan at the Green Building Council of Australia’s (GBCA) recent Green Building Day event in Brisbane.
Nicole was joined by fellow building sustainability experts Jeremy Mansfield (National Sustainability Operations Manager at Lendlease), Wayne Roberts (Manager (Concrete Materials) at Department of Transport and Main Roads), Jorge Chapa (Head of Market Transformation at GBCA), and Sam Donaldson (Head of Sustainability at Laing O’Rourke).
The panel addressed the importance of upfront embodied emissions, and the role industry leaders, associations, and government, have in driving down those emissions.
Upfront embodied emissions
The panellists discussed carbon in the context of the lifecycle of a building. Operational emissions still make up the majority of emissions from buildings in Australia. However, we already know how to tackle this objective, with investment and development in renewable energy solutions covering the vast majority of operational emissions. The rest of the carbon emissions associated with a building are the embodied emissions. Embodied carbon is invested across the whole lifecycle of a building and requires the same attention currently given to operational emissions
Upfront embodied carbon emissions are the emissions invested at the start of the building's lifespan through the extraction and manufacture of the building materials, and the construction of the building itself. A key message of this panel was the need to thoroughly consider and account for upfront emissions at the outset of a construction project.
The investment of carbon that you make at the upfront stage is gradually ‘paid off’ through the rest of the lifecycle of the building. That is because the longer the lifespan of the building, the more productive the carbon emitted at the beginning of its life is. Once the end-of-life stage of a building is reached, materials need to be effectively reused, repurposed, and refurbished, in order to continue to make the most of the initial carbon investment. If these considerations are made at the early stages of a project, major structural materials can then remain in service for many years without further carbon investment.
The other fundamental factor for upfront carbon emissions is that, while they are invested at the beginning of the building and embedded throughout the whole life cycle, they are emitted today. Those emissions impact our atmosphere and climate change, and therefore, it is crucial that we address them now.
Reflecting on the theme of the panel, Nicole emphasised that “it is about maturing the conversation on carbon. Our biggest source of emissions in buildings is operational but we know how to solve the operational carbon emissions dilemma. There are commitments to decarbonize the grid by 2050, for example. But it’s ‘both … and’ [upfront emissions and operational], not ‘either … or’”.
The supply chain challenge
While policymakers and developers are beginning to understand the impacts of upfront embodied emissions, a major challenge remains in bringing down emissions across the full supply chain. As Nicole says, “we can't flick a switch and the supply chain changes. We are talking about an investment of many billions of dollars in order to be able to transform the industry.”
However, some key industry players are making bold moves to help drive this change. Karen Greaves, Sustainability Manager QLD and Yarrabilba Development at Lendlease, spoke before the panel about Lendlease’s commitment to be ‘absolute zero’ by 2040. This means eliminating carbon to the extent that even carbon offsets will not factor in their projects. The interesting point here is that Lendlease still do not know how they will achieve this — they only know that “they're going to have to work really hard!”.
Nicole explained that Lendlease will have to collaborate very deeply with their supply chain in order to achieve their goal. “It's a very courageous statement, because too often, organisations are only prepared to commit to what they know how to do. Lendlease have done exactly the opposite.”
Possible early drivers of this radical change will be requiring carbon neutral certified products, thereby increasing market demand. This effectively imposes a price on carbon for products, which then helps to develop internal business cases for the supply chain. The fundamental lesson here is that with strong collaboration, the supply chain will transform.
Creating a movement through the public sector
The New Zealand government have demonstrated one pathway towards low carbon building by introducing their Building for Climate Change program. By starting with their own public sector buildings, they are demonstrating how the shift can happen at scale and that industry can follow suit. As Nicole states, “that’s an opportunity for government, which New Zealand has identified, and Australia could learn from.”
Governments need to support industry to be able to create this transformative change. The Materials & Embodied Carbon Leaders’ Alliance (MECLA) is a great example of this, with the New South Wales Government, WWF, and Lendlease, leading a movement of industry actors. associations, and other states and territories. They are working together to create a unified industry approach to incentivising low carbon building materials. “thinkstep-anz is supportive of this movement. We're investing in that organisation as a member, and we're involved in the Project Control Group and the working groups so we can pro bono contribute to something which we consider absolutely fundamental”, Nicole added
The transformation is underway
As Jeremy Mansfield said of Lendlease’s commitment to MECLA, industry leaders need to help develop standard methodologies and a common language for building specifications. This is the most effective way to achieve broad transformation in the industry. With targets around things like social procurement and diversity already featuring in new contracts, the same can be done for carbon. “Start being specific about it in your requirements, because then the contractors and everything else will follow”, says Nicole. “The supply chain is engaging more and more in this. And they want to understand and improve their scope 3 emissions, particularly in a way that I really haven't seen before.”
Nicole believes there is ever-increasing opportunity ahead for the property and development industry to collaborate with the supply chain — to demonstrate demand. An attractive business case for change will be assisted by demanding carbon neutral products today. “We need to help the supply chain to demonstrate that there is a genuine market demand for driving towards lower carbon products and for investing in this kind of transformative action,” she says. “This is a major reason I joined thinkstep-anz six months ago — to use my manufacturing and sustainability roots to enable the transition for the supply chain, the built environment, and industry generally.”