Guide to the early design stage lifecycle carbon review tool

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 As part of our commitment to Architects Declare
and our ongoing work to mitigate climate change,
we are sharing our in-house whole life carbon tool FCBS CARBON 2
with the wider industry.
Introduction to Whole Life Carbon Assessment 4
How do we report Whole Life Carbon, and why should we?
FCBS CARBON has been designed to estimate
User guide to FCBS CARBON 6
the whole life carbon of a building, from the very
inception of the project. This makes the carbon Guide to inputs
0 INPUT Project Details 8
impacts clear to the client, architect, and wider 1 INPUT Operational Energy 10
design team. 2 INPUT Embodied Carbon 12
Guide to outputs
3 OUTPUT Graphics 16
At its heart is an algorithm that estimates the 4 OUTPUT Graphics 18
embodied carbon based on simple geometry and Notes and clarifications 20
a curated list of materials/build-ups. This removes
Calculation of the WLCA modules 20
the need for detailed CAD models or schedules of Embodied carbon data
materials, increasing the speed of iterative design Treatment of recycled materials
Treatment of biogenic carbon 21
changes and ease of decision making. Grid decarbonisation
Estimating the cost of carbon offsetting
Geographical relevance of included data and benchmarks
This tool is still in beta testing, and we are releasing
it for wider testing. If you have suggestions and Beta test version: credits and conditions of use 22
feedback please contact Joe Jack Williams on:
joe.jack.williams@fcbstudios.com

January 2021
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 Introduction to
Whole Life Carbon
Assessment
Whole life carbon accounts for all emissions arising over the entire life of a built
asset. It also considers the future reusability and recyclability of constituent
elements. This encompasses all stages of the asset lifecycle: from material
extraction and component manufacture; through building construction,
maintenance and operation; to end of life deconstruction or demolition and the
potential secondary lifecycles of components beyond.

Whole life carbon is considered in terms of operational and embodied carbon.

Operational carbon represents the emissions relating to the energy use of
building-integrated systems, and is largely well understood. Embodied carbon is
intuitively understood from a material efficiency perspective, but also includes the
impact of various other key lifecycle stages.

This is set out in the RICS Professional Statement on Whole life carbon
assessment for the built environment:

“…embodied emissions arise The tool considers all modules except module B7, water usage. The
from producing, procuring methodology for the estimates of each module are included in the
and installing the materials notes and clarifications.
and components that make
up a structure. These also Capturing and publishing this information is a crucial step in
include the lifetime emissions supporting wider progress towards sustainable practices in the
from maintenance, repair, construction industry. It will help to identify opportunities for
replacement and ultimately improvement as well as highlight best practice.
demolition and disposal.”
Calculating embodied carbon has been a relatively niche exercise
until recently, with no collective knowledge that can guide early design
Understanding the embodied carbon of materials allows us to make informed decisions. This tool is aiming to fill the gap at those early stages,
choices about how we use them. With a limited timescale in which to enabling embodied carbon to be represented with minimal technical
dramatically curb such emissions, embodied carbon is becoming increasingly knowledge required. During RIBA stages 1&2 designers and clients
important, as a large part of these emissions are incurred immediately. will be able to not only grasp the scale of the embodied carbon of
Appreciation of embodied carbon also helps us to understand the value of the their proposed buildings, but also explore options using a consistent
materials we already have. methodology, giving immediate directional and magnitudinal feedback
for consideration.
How do we report Whole Life Carbon, and why should we?

For whole life carbon estimates to be most useful, it is important that they are
produced to a widely adopted standard. It is only possible to benchmark good
practice and measure progress if studies are conducted with similar scope
and methodology. This tool is aligned with the RICS Professional Statement
referenced above and structured around the EN 15978 modular system for
whole life carbon assessment.

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 USER GUIDE CONTENTS the early design stage lifecycle carbon review tool
0. INPUT Project Details FCBS CARBON is an interactive Excel worksheet intended to inform a comparative understanding of
the whole life carbon performance of early-stage design options.

The tool makes an estimate of the operational emissions and embodied emissions of key building
elements from cradle to grave over a 60-year lifespan. The tool also considers the emissions offsets
within a project attributable to: carbon sequestration (for reuse of timber elements); reuse of building
elements at end of life; and on-site renewable energy generation.

It consists of three interactive input sheets and two output sheets.

1. INPUT Operational Energy INPUT

Within each of the input sections, data from different sources can be input to generate the overall
carbon footprint of the building.

These are compared to industry benchmarks and targets to understand relative performance.

Input sheets are colour-coded to indicate cell function:

Yellow boxes indicate user input cells

2. INPUT Embodied Carbon Grey boxes indicate information provided for your reference and information

3. OUTPUT Graphics OUTPUT

Overall impact of the project is captured on the output sheets.

These are set up to be exported to stage reports and form part of the discussion as a project
progresses.

Results should not be viewed as exact values for the carbon associated with any project, but rather
as a platform from which to investigate the relative impact of early stage design choices, and as a
starting point for more detailed analyses as a project moves through the design stages.

4. OUTPUT Graphics

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 GUIDE TO INPUTS
0 INPUT Project Details

The Project Details sheet acts as a cover page for the carbon
report.

It records key project information for identification, tracking,

and comparison of results across projects.

Fields marked with a red asterisk are required for sheet

functionality. These values are reported elsewhere in the
worksheet for reference but can only be adjusted on the
Project Details sheet.

Currently, FCBS CARBON only predicts future carbon

emissions, so year of completion can be no earlier than 2020.

Sector selection affects underlying assumptions on the

structural design of the building, for example spans, as well as
the benchmarks the building will be compared to. Two main
typologies, offices and housing, are available, with sub-sectors
to adjust the assumptions further.

There is also a space to record the drivers and aims of the

assessment, which is a requirement of a full whole life carbon
assessment as per the RICS Professional Statement, as well
as illustrations for reference.

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 Specific use fields are included to capture details
GUIDE TO INPUTS of energy load if known, but otherwise a combined
estimate can be entered into the “Other” field.
1 INPUT Operational Energy Also to be completed is a record of the calculation
methodology used – this is to provide an indication
of how thorough the estimate is (e.g. CIBSE TM54,
Part L, estimate based on the benchmarks, etc).
This is for future reference and can be left blank.

It is intended that the sustainability consultants will be

able to help with the figures on this sheet. Compliance
calculations, such as Part L, will not include data on
the unregulated energy consumption arising from
occupants. In practice this can at least double the
energy usage. So where engineers are appointed,
they should be engaged to estimate this unregulated
component using an approved methodology such as
CIBSE TM54, Design for Performance, or PHPP.

The user input operational energy figures can simply

be targets or aspirations. In this case, once the
embodied carbon section has been completed, it may
be worth revisiting the figures for the operational energy
to understand the sensitivity of the overall footprint
to operational energy. Sector specific benchmarks
provided are there to help guide your thoughts, but do
consider whether you use gas or electricity for heating.

Non-electric energy uses are currently assumed to be

gas, representing the most common alternative energy
source.

Expected PV generation for your

site can be estimated by the free
PVWatts tool developed by NREL
(available online at www.pvwatts.nrel.
gov/).

All data is in kWh/m2/year format,

representing the annual energy use
This sheet consists of a set of manual input fields to record the per GIA. Note that the renewables
data is also in this format (per m2 GIA
operational energy requirements of the project. These are split into rather than per m2 of solar panelling,
for example).
regulated and unregulated, electrical and non-electrical sections.
The graphs on the right of the
sheet show how the operational
energy consumption of your building
compares to the RIBA 2030 Climate
Challenge target, as well as against
current industry benchmarks
(CIBSE Guide F). Note that there
are two benchmarked values: one
representing the gross operational
demand of your building; and
another demonstrating the potential
reduction achieved via the use of on-
site renewables.

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 GUIDE TO INPUTS
2 INPUT Embodied Carbon
The unique project details required are shown above
These are based on simple measurements available during massing studies. These figures are used
to generate a schematic building model to represent the area or volume of building elements present
in your design and should be averages for the whole building. These details must be completed first,
as they are required in the generation of embodied carbon estimates in the following drop-down
portion of the sheet. Note that GIA is an important calculation quantity and is entered on 0. INPUT
Project Details. This is not linked to details of footprint or number of storeys and must be updated
separately.
Once your building measurements have been entered, you can populate the drop-down table below.
Buildings are broken down by aspect, element and material as specified in the RICS Professional
Statement on Whole life carbon assessment for the built environment.

The table is pre-populated with one row for each possible element, although more can be added as
needed. Note that a project may not require all of the default options – for example, a piled building
This sheet has been designed to give an estimate of the embodied will likely not need a raft foundation as well. In these cases, you can simply leave the material field as
blank.
carbon to inform design decisions prior to detailed design. Each element has an associated list of possible material selections, which, once selected, will
show any assumptions (such as thicknesses) to the right of the table, alongside individual impact
estimates. Choose the material closest to your design. At this stage, we are looking for general
indicators rather than detailed analysis.
The interface on this sheet is a combination of manual data entry The Adjustment factor
The intention of the Adjustment Factor is to provide a straightforward method to adjust the carbon
fields and drop-down menus referenced to existing data sets impact of individual building elements.
In testing, it has proved useful to:
including the carbon impact of various materials. This is to ensure - Split the total volume of a building element where multiple materials are used (e.g. a project
may have its floor area split between carpet and vinyl finishes).
consistency and comparability amongst data generated from - Proportionally adjust the assumptions associated with a selected element or material (e.g. a
project with floor slabs twice as thick as the tool assumptions would represent an adjustment
projects. factor of 2).
- Simply match the estimated material quantities to a bill of materials provided by the engineers.
- Investigate the sensitivity of the overall footprint to the material efficiency of an individual
building element.
With any of the inputs, the aim is to use the most representative The Adjustment Factor will be blank by default, which indicates that the sheet is following the
normal calculation method. Any value entered into the field will modify the embodied carbon
figure, using averages where there is a range, for example floor to estimate by the proportional amount.

floor heights. These can be quickly changed once all the data has
been entered to see the sensitivity these inputs have on the whole life
carbon.
For example, the Adjustment Factor has been used above to model a 70/20/10% split of floor
coverings over the internal area between carpet, vinyl, and tiling. These do not have to add up to
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 GUIDE TO INPUTS
2 INPUT Embodied Carbon

In addition to selecting the material, the status of the material as new or existing fabric, age if existing,
and expected component life should be entered. These fields each influence the calculation of whole
life carbon. Including an estimated lifespan for all elements is important, as this allows the capturing
of emissions relating to replacement cycles over the building life (module [B4]). For some elements
with a high churn, such as internal finishes and services, this can be particularly significant. Lifespan
will depend heavily on your particular project, component, and materials.

Marking an element as retained existing fabric will exclude its associated [A1-A5] emissions from
the project total and providing details of its age will adjust replacement cycles accordingly. The
replacement cycles take into account the age of existing building elements.

Live Output Graphs

The embodied carbon input sheet features two graphical outputs which will update as you enter
building information.

The pie chart presents the breakdown of relative embodied carbon of new elements by building
aspect. This provides an indication of where in the building fabric most of the new embodied
emissions associated with a project are falling.

The bar chart demonstrates how the whole life embodied carbon estimate performs against RIBA
2030 Climate Challenge targets. There are two totals presented here: the embodied carbon over
the lifecycle; and the potential offset impact including carbon sequestration, should the correct
conditions for treatment of biogenic materials be met. This is detailed in the notes and clarifications.

Changes to emissions due to varying the building details, or the selected materials, will be
immediately reflected in these graphs. Note that the quantities of some elements, such as piles, are
dynamically dependent on other building elements and their impact will vary as such.

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 GUIDE TO OUTPUTS
3 OUTPUT Graphics
The top two quadrants demonstrate the operational and embodied carbon impacts. The
operational energy graphs show how the energy use compares to the CIBSE Guide F
benchmark and predictions for annual carbon emissions with and without any renewable
energy sources. The embodied carbon graph shows the emitted and sequestered carbon
by building aspect across all the LCA modules, per m2.

The bottom left quadrant displays the combined impact of the project at lifetime milestones,
providing a quick reference as to the proportions attributable to embodied and operational
carbon, as well as the relative magnitude of any carbon sequestration due to biogenic
building materials.

The bottom right quadrant provides an estimate as to scale and cost of offsetting required
Output Sheet 1 for a project should you wish to achieve a net zero impact over a 60-year lifespan.

Provides a quantitative breakdown of the carbon emissions associated with the

project. This output is intended to provide the clearest overview of the whole life
carbon of the modelled project, identifying performance against RIBA 2030 targets,
and the relative impacts of the operational and embodied carbon. We expect this
output to be the most widely useful.

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 GUIDE TO OUTPUTS
4 OUTPUT Graphics
The graph on the top half of the sheet provides a breakdown of emissions across the assessment
modules. It also displays the carbon value of any existing fabric retained in the new building, to give
a more complete picture of the ‘carbon-value’ of a project. Module D total include any elements that
have be identified as reusable at the end of their life, as well as any renewable energy generation
exported to the grid.

The graph on the bottom half represents a continuous tracking of the carbon impact of the building
over its lifetime. Step jumps represent the replacement of building elements.

Two scenarios are modelled to capture the “business as usual case”, as well as potential
decarbonisation of the energy grid and successful carbon sequestration. This provides a very rough
Output Sheet 2 envelope in which the impact of the project might sit, although the upper-bound estimates are those
reported . End of life emissions [C1 – C4] are applied at year 0, such that they are included in a
Provides a higher resolution attribution of the carbon in a project, providing an reading of the graph at any year.

additional overview for discussion on how the carbon is emitted over time and at Large jumps in embodied carbon may indicate the simulated replacement of ‘big ticket’ items,
such as MEP services plant, facade or foundations or structural frames. Ensure that key structural
each LCA stage. elements have a component life which is relevant to the building lifespan under consideration.

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 Notes and clarifications

Calculation of the WLCA modules Treatment of biogenic carbon

RICS suggests that biogenic carbon only be taken into account when:
In this version of the tool, some of the modules are calculated with direct
data, while others are estimated as uplifts based on available data from 1. The whole life carbon assessment of the project includes the
previous WLCA studies. Details are provided below: impacts of the EoL stage [C]

2. The timber originates from sustainable sources (certified by FSC,

PEFC or equivalent)

Biogenic carbon is reported separately throughout this tool to illustrate the

potential benefit of carbon sequestration should the correct conditions be
met. It is not included in the primary reported totals which reflect estimates
of the unavoidable emissions that will occur should a certain material choice
be made. Note, this is not inline with BS EN 15978:2011 which would
include biogenic carbon in A1-3, but also model their release in module
C3 as the waste is assumed to be burnt, neutalising any benefit. We are
investigating the best way of representing it, so use with caution as is.

Grid decarbonisation

Government projections of UK grid decarbonisation from the BEIS are

included in the tool. These projections are based on “assumptions of
future economic growth, fossil fuel prices, electricity generation costs, UK
population and other key variables”. The potential benefit of decarbonised
grid values is illustrated on sheet 4. OUTPUT Graphics, but reported figures
use SAP10.1 factors which do not account for further decarbonisation.

Estimating the cost of carbon offsetting

Estimates of offsetting via carbon credits accrued from new woodland

and building retrofit schemes have been included in the tool as a way of
contextualising the lifetime impact of projects.
Embodied carbon data
Values for tree planting are based on carbon sequestration rates for a hectare
The majority of material data are averages taken from ICE V3 Nov 2019, with of native, mixed British woodland, as estimated by the Woodland Carbon
default specifications on strength classes/recycling rates aligned with the Code Carbon Calculation Spreadsheet V2.2. The expected cost of carbon
RICS Professional Statement on Whole life carbon assessment for the built credits from such woodland is set at £25 per tonne of CO2e.
environment.
The equivalent cost of offsetting by investing in upgrading the thermal
In cases where no value was available in the ICE database, EN15978 performance of existing housing stock in London is included for comparison.
compliant Environmental Product Declarations have been used. Camden Warm & Well fund estimates this cost at £95 per tonne of CO2e.

Treatment of recycled materials Geographical relevance of included data and benchmarks

Any savings from recycled material are included in the values input in the This tool is aimed at UK construction, and the included data and assumptions
materials list. Guidance on calculating recycling benefits can be found in reflect this. Varying climate, material specifications, building standards,
Embodied Carbon: The Inventory of Carbon and Energy (ICE) G Hammond construction practices, and energy grids are only some of the factors that
& C Jones, BSRIA, 2011, Annex B. influence the emissions impact of a project. Consideration of these factors is
important when using the tool in a different geographical context.

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FCBS CARBON is distributed as a beta version to provide guidance at early stages of building design. It is intended to provide a consistent
methodology to understand the magnitude of design decisions, enabling whole life carbon to be compared between different options. The tool
is provided as a macro enabled spreadsheet, please ensure you enable the macros to experience the full functionality of FCBS CARBON.

The tool provides an estimate of the whole life carbon, and users must ensure that the modelled parameters of any building represent it as
accurately as possible for that design stage. All claims relating to whole life carbon arising as result of this tool should be verified by a suitably
qualified professional. FCBStudios provide no warranty as to the accuracy of the results from this tool.

The tool has been developed by FCBStudios Ltd using carbon factors derived from the Inventory of Carbon and Energy (ICE) database and
Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs).

Please credit any work using FCBS CARBON to FCBStudios.

By downloading the tool you consent to FCBStudios to contact you regarding your experience of using the tool to guide future development
including an online version. Data provided during this exercise will be provided anonymously unless explicit permission has been granted by the
user.

The tool is issued under the Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND-4.0 International licence.

FCBStudios wish to thank Dr Joe Jack Williams and Joe Taylor for the development of the tool.

FCBStudios also wish to thank the following individuals for their guidance in the preparation of the tool for free release to the industry:
For discussion on structural assumptions:
Marta Galinanes Garcia and Edoardo Tibuzzi at AKT II
Steve Webb and Alex Lynes, at Webb Yates
Julia Ratcliffe at Scale Consulting
For discussion on the benchmarking of whole life carbon methodologies
Simon Sturgis at Targetting Zero