The Indicate initiative hopes to bring together governments, industry and academics to address what its backers see as the lack of reliable carbon emissions data for buildings.
Indicate is a collaboration between Danish research consultancy Smith Innovation, the Building Performance Institute Europe (BPIE), Belgian research university KU Leuven and the World Green Building Council with funding from venture capitalist the Laudes Foundation.
Currently, almost all building regulations in Europe address only the carbon emissions from buildings in operation, ignoring the embodied emissions generated before the building comes into use and at the end of its life.
According to Indicate, these embodied carbon emissions can be more than half of a new building’s total carbon footprint and threaten to consume national construction carbon budgets well ahead of 2050 net zero goals.
The initiative seeks to accelerate policy development across Europe by generating “critical baseline data” to help policymakers set carbon limits that cover the full life-cycle impact of buildings, from manufacture and construction through to deconstruction and waste processing.
In Denmark, Finland, France and the Netherlands, whole life carbon policies are already in operation but other European countries are prevented by a lack of data from following this example. The Indicate initiative aims to fill this gap, using its public-private approach to fast-track the dissemination of crucial data.
The EU recently took its own first steps towards whole life carbon regulation with proposals to introduce mandatory reporting in the revision of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD). By strengthening political support in more countries the Indicate initiative hopes to overcome opposition to the proposed EPBD revisions.
The Indicate coalition sees the recruitment of the Spanish, Irish and Czech governments as a major step towards its goal.
Petr Serafín, director of the department of construction and building materials at the Czech Ministry of Industry & Trade, said: “We believe that thanks to this project we will obtain relevant data about the building stock, not only about new buildings, but also about existing objects.
“Valid data is essential to move towards carbon neutrality in decarbonisation, which we should achieve by 2050 according to the Paris Agreement. A big benefit of the project is that it also includes presentations of study results to all interested parties, including the state administration.”
Serafin’s Irish counterpart, Francis-Noel Duffy, member of Dáil Éireann for Dublin South West and a Green Party spokesperson on housing, said: “Addressing embodied carbon emissions is critical to halve our emissions by 2030 and reach carbon neutrality by 2050. The development of high-quality data and baseline data for buildings constructed in Ireland through pilot projects is a key step in supporting the regulation of these emissions in Ireland.”
Belén Vitón Sanz from Spain’s Office for Climate Change, added: “Initiatives such as Indicate can help progress towards a more accurate knowledge of the carbon footprint of buildings in Spain, which is undoubtedly essential for the development of decarbonisation policies and strategies."
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