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

Authors
Röck, Martin; Hvid Horup Sørensen, Lise; Lynge, Kirsten; Tozan, Buket; Shcack, Rikke; Fields, Maya; Collin, Christine; Le Den, Xavier; Birgisdóttir, Harpa

Abstract
Introduction: The pressure from human activities are starting to exceed the carrying capacity of environmental systems prompting their destabilization. In context of the European Union (EU), the EU Green Deal sets an enhanced climate ambition for the EU, including the climate neutrality by 2050 target, and it emphasises that the transformation of the built industry has an important role to play in the achievement of these goals. As part of its Renovation Wave Strategy, the European Commission has acknowledged the importance of embodied carbon in building and paved the way to an “EU 2050 roadmap for reducing whole life-cycle carbon emissions in buildings”. We hereby propose to present the preliminary findings of the project “Towards European Embodied Carbon Benchmarks for the Building Industry” at the LCM 2021 conference. Objectives: The project’s overall objective is to support a carbon neutral transformation of the building sector by setting the baseline and defining targets for embodied carbon performance of buildings across Europe, in view of establishing benchmarks and feeding to support the development of the EU 2050 roadmap for reducing whole lifecycle carbon emissions of buildings. Methodology: With this project, we aim to inform decision-making and accelerate the transition of the building sector by improving the sector’s understanding of: the baseline – derived from the collection and analysis of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) data on buildings across Europe; targets and decarbonization pathways that are compatible with the IPCC 1.5C scenario and the Paris Agreement, and; a set of benchmarks that would guide the European building sector on this pathway, focusing on new buildings. Results: By the time of the conference, we expect that we can share preliminary results on both baseline values and target pathways as well as provide first insights into the benchmarks on building level.