Towards embodied carbon benchmarks for buildings in Europe - #3 Defining budget-based targets: A top-down approach

Embodied Carbon in the Building Sector

A new study, 'Towards embodied carbon benchmarks for buildings in Europe', by Ramboll, in collaboration with leading researchers from Aalborg University Build and KU Leuven sets out a framework for benchmarking and limiting the embodied carbon of new buildings.

The study identifies solutions to measure embodied carbon emissions, define carbon budgets and targets. Importantly it includes recommendations for a baseline of current embodied carbon levels in new buildings, as well as considerations of the available carbon budget for these emissions. This will form the basis of a performance system in the shape of benchmarks for the reduction of embodied carbon.

Download the reports

• #1 Facing the data challenge (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6120522)
• #2 Setting the baseline. A bottom-up approach (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5895051)
• #3 Defining budget-based targets. A top-down approach (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6120882)
• #4 Bridging the embodied carbon performance gap (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6120874)
• Summary report  - The important takeaways in short (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6397514)

Learn more

To learn more about the study and download the reports from the study, go to our Embodied Carbon in the Building Sector website (https://c.ramboll.com/lets-reduce-embodied-carbon)

Change notes

• Version 1.1 
  • The originally published version contained an error in "Table 1: Comparison of whole-life embodied emissions (in kgCO2eq/m2) according to empirical baseline and budget-based targets". Values have been corrected in v1.1.