Carbon Heroes Benchmark Program

This article, written in September 2019, shares the preliminary results of the Carbon Heroes Benchmark program. It describes the design of the data collection procedure, the assumptions in the organization of data, and the challenges encountered in the program.

We know we need to reduced the embodied carbon of buildings – but doing so requires two things:

1. A better understanding of the life cycle impacts of the materials used in those buildings
2. An understanding of how the building stock varies across geographies and building types.

The Carbon Heroes Benchmark program is a collaborative initiative which aims to address this need by carbon profiling by building type across different countries. With the goal of creating uniform, life-cycle materials benchmarks for common building types using One Click LCA.

This article shares the preliminary findings of the project, based on 659 verified buildings (February 2019 cut-off), with substantial datasets for many European countries for some of the most common building types.

All data used in the program is rigorously anonymized. The program implements the EN 15978/ISO 21930 standards as the basis of measurement, and includes life-cycle stages A1-A3, A4, B4-B5, and C1-C4.

This article was first published in the IOP Conference Series Earth and Environmental Science.

About One Click LCA Ltd

One Click LCA Ltd is the developer of the One Click LCA, the world-leading construction life-cycle metrics software.

One Click LCA supports over 60 systems identified in The Embodied Carbon Review. Bionova also conducts selective leading-edge research in built environment sustainability, in particular for embodied carbon, and life cycle assessment.

Our mission is to help designers bring sustainable buildings and business within everyone’s reach. Discover guides and high-impact research to find out more.