‘Embodied Carbon and The Climate Impact of our Housing’ is a report prepared for the Housing Agency by Philip Comerford, an architect in private practice in Dublin and a researcher in UCD.
The housing crisis and the climate crisis are intertwined, and we cannot solve one without addressing the other. Current regulations in Ireland focus mainly on the emissions created by the running of buildings, known as operational carbon and measured through the Building Energy Rating system. Less well understood is the carbon emitted through the construction and maintenance of buildings, known as embodied carbon.
This research addresses this gap by assessing the embodied carbon emissions of different dwelling types at a range of scales and densities, from individual houses to duplex dwellings and apartments.
An innovative aspect of the study is that in addition to measuring the environmental impact of dwellings themselves, the surrounding neighbourhood is also considered together with its external landscaping and road infrastructure.
By gaining an understanding of the climate impacts of current building practices, strategies for a decarbonised housing sector are then proposed. This evidence-based knowledge will provide developers, policy makers and housing stakeholders with a platform to imagine the low-carbon communities of the future.
Read the report here