I have knuckled down this week on lifecycle assessments and embodied carbon for material analysis of a design the office is currently working on.
A Lifecycle Assessment (LCA) is mostly calculated through a standardized measurement of a buildings global warming potential (GWP) (kg of CO2 equivalent). The GWP can be divided across the building’s life from transportation of materials to construction, user activity and end of life etc.
Operational energy is the main producer of GWP for a building. The second biggest producer of GWP is the material production. Concrete as a material produces high amounts of embodied carbon. Unreinforced blast furnaced concrete ‘green’ blends (SCM) can alternatively reduce the carbon output by 30% this can make an accumulative difference across the lifespan on a building.
Big learnings and reflections from learning ETool over the last couple of weeks. It was satisfying to reach this outcome this week.
Also - went bowling with the PTA/HSPC team. Jack high!
