Embodied emissions within buildings

The Green Building Council did commission a report to explore the embodied carbon of New Zealand’s buildings and potential reduction potentials. The report looked at average residential and commercial buildings and was forming part of a submission to the Parliamentary Select Committee on the Government’s Zero Carbon Bill. Obviously, buildings may vary greatly in their embodied carbon but this is some average assumptions. In May 2019, the Government decided to introduce it as an amendment to the Climate Change Response Act 2002. The objective was to ensure that all key climate legislation is within one Act.

The political pathway to a lower carbon future is a complex one and you can read more about the ”Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act 2019” on the MfE website. There is a rather large amount of bills, minutes and decisions linked at the bottom.

Notwithstanding the complex political movement, it is clear that we need to rethink the way we do things, and how we build buildings. We also need to think about how we can retrofit our existing buildings. The Thinkstep report gives some pointers for buildings, both regarding new buildings and maintenance.

Nearly 4 years ago I did write a blog post about the zero carbon bill and queried the immediate actions. Meanwhile 4 years passed, Cop26 came and went. Where are we?