A pragmatic approach for embodied carbon estimating in buildings

Embodied Carbon (EC) estimating is driven by the development of lnventory of Carbon and Energy (ICE) in 2008 along with the initial information paper of Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) on the methodology to calculate EC in 2012. RICS's latest guidance note (RICS, 2014} suggests good practices to estimate EC during various stages of a construction project. However, EC estimating was daunting and laborious which is then simplified to some extent by the introduction of the UK Building Blackbook. Despite the efforts of institutions and researchers to encourage EC estimating, construction industry is slow to embed EC estimating in day-to-day business. Nevertheless, EC research is breaking its boundaries and embarking into new avenues. This paper adds new knowledge to the existing body of literature by presenting analyses of EC in different types of buildings including offices, residential buildings and educational buildings. Data were obtained from WRAP EC Database and presented in accordance with the element classification system of New Rules of Measurement(NRM). Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the data and inferences were made based on the findings. 'Carbon hotspots' or the carbon intensive elements in the selected three types of buildings were identified and an approach to estimate EC based on carbon hotspots is proposed in light of encouraging practices of EC estimating from an early stage of design process