Embodied Carbon & Life Cycle Assessment in Traditional and Heritage Buildings

This course explores energy efficiency in traditional and heritage buildings and discusses emerging research on climate change and its effect on heritage buildings. It draws from a study commissioned by several governments on the effects climate change will have on our built environment and the built environment's role in mitigating climate change.

Research findings such as the Central European Standard in “Energy Efficiency in Traditional Buildings” (CEN 16833:2017) – Climate Change Adaptation Sectoral Plan for Built & Archaeological Heritage and more recently “Understanding Carbon in the Built Environment” has led to a great understanding of the importance of our built environment and the role our existing building stock can play and contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gases. Most international directives have concentrated on the reduction and/or greening of “Operational Energy” yet these study findings show that “Embodied Carbon” and the reduction in the use of carbon-intensive products in construction is the best way to deliver government targets of carbon reduction in the Paris Agreement.

The course features a number of international case studies, discusses the process to understand carbon in the built environment, and explains the study results, as well as suggests ways to drive this thesis and highlight the need to a) have a dedicated LCA Tool for existing buildings and b) propose a few policies that should be considered. You will complete the course prepared to discuss and debate adaptive reuse and the need to eliminate maladaptation of our existing building stock.