Development of new LCA based benchmarks for certification of buildings

Session
MO.2.E || What Gets Measured, Gets Improved – Impact Assessment and Environmental Labeling Along the Production Chain II

Authors
Braune, Anna; Quante, Kathrin

Abstract
The construction of new buildings and major renovations are responsible for a large share of global GHG emissions. At the same time, the demand for new spaces to live and work raises. New strategies are needed to fulfil this demand without compromising climate targets. The German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB) has established a framework to assess and improve the sustainability effects of building, renovation and management activities of the built environment, the DGNB Certification System. Integral part of the assessment is to perform Life Cycle Assessments throughout the planning and design stage and to stay below defined benchmarks for selected LCA indicators, including Global Warming Potential. The development of benchmarks has been based on statistically derived values, that were controlled and slightly adapted over the last 10 years. A new assessment of 50 buildings has been performed in order to identify, whether resetting of benchmarks is necessary to drive the market further towards more future orientation. The results of the new assessment provide the option to use new statistically derived reference and target values and shows, that specific building types and energetic performance impacts the results. It also shows the importance of the different life cycle stages. The assessment is part of the “BuildingLife project”, supported by various European Green Building Councils and forms one part of the status quo assessment of DGNB. The presentation will provide insights into the main results of the assessment, focussing on GHG emissions. Secondly it will discuss, how design strategies, such as circular design, passive design, adaptability, lightweight and selection of low carbon materials correlates with the assessment results. An outlook of the impact of using new benchmarks will be given, that derives total estimated future carbon reduction potentials.