The first edition of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) Whole Life Carbon Assessment for the Built Environment, published in 2017, is a professional statement that establishes a methodology for calculating the carbon cost of buildings, and now infrastructure, from construction, through use, to end-of-life.

The guidelines already allow users to make finely tuned carbon cost/benefit calculations. For example, do the energy savings of added insulation justify the embodied carbon cost of the insulating material? Or, has a building truly reached the end of its life, or could it be more efficiently re-used or retrofitted? If it cannot, can any carbon costs be saved through salvaging materials?

The professional statement is now being revised, and a public consultation is taking place until 18 April 2023. In this episode, Simon Sturgis, who has led the development of the guidance, explains its origins, and the ideas behind it, and the RICS’s Matthew Collins explains how it is being used, and why it is being revised.

Guests

Simon Sturgis, founder, Targeting Zero LLP

Matthew Collins, senior specialist, construction and infrastructure management, RICS

Resources

Simon Sturgis’s paper Redefining Zero, which helped spur debate on the carbon costs of buildings.

The UK House of Commons environmental audit select committee report Building to net zero: costing carbon in construction.

The Bath University Inventory of Carbon and Energy (Bath ICE) database.

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