Research released by the Green Building Council of Australia has found embodied carbon will make up 85% of Australia's built environment emissions by 2050, compared with 16% in 2019.

However, alongside the development of practical manufacturing and solutions designed to drive down embodied emissions, it is an accepted fact that the Australian construction industry also develop and adopt Australian-based embodied carbon standards which are independent, transparent and meet international standards ISO 14025 and EN 15879.

Currently, the Australian Institute of Quantity Surveyors (AIQS) is working with MECLA, NABERS and the GBCA to assist in the development of a national framework for measuring, certifying, and benchmarking emissions from construction and building materials.

“As noted by Slattery in their Upfront Embodied Carbon Benchmarks report, at present there
are no industry agreed frameworks in Australia and, as a result, there are inconsistencies in
methodology, scope and data sources that deliver inconsistent results. Additionally, not all
professionals use the same methods or data sources. This makes comparisons and
benchmarking across different businesses/projects problematic,” says AIQS CEO, Grant
Warner

While other offshore markets have published total embodied carbon targets and rating systems across various building portfolios, the data does not apply to the Australian market.

This means that companies and government agencies within Australia are having to rely on internal measures to provide metrics for reporting levels of embodied carbon and reduction targets for new construction projects.

As an example, the NSW Government (Office of Energy and Climate Change) has been working to implement a new ratings tool to measure embodied carbon during design and construction for commercial and other non-residential buildings in NSW.

“Developing Australian standards is an imperative step towards reducing embodied carbon emissions in future, especially if we are to achieve Net Zero carbon by 2035,” says Warner.

However far from being viewed as a negative, this current scenario of independent reporting should be viewed as a positive transitional arrangement necessary to facilitate the present-day construction of buildings with reduced embodied carbon.

“Having a transparent benchmark which can stand up to external scrutiny is ideal, but in the absence we should proceed with the metrics at hand,” he says.

“We don’t need to stop the way companies are currently quantifying and benchmarking embodied carbon, we just need to get to a point where the industry can be on a level playing field and communicating to clients/stakeholders in a common language.”

“To deliver this, the role of the quantity surveying professional is justifiably the natural choice and one the AIQS is only too happy to support in developing.” says Warner.

Image: Pintrest

Branko Miletic

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