Edinburgh Napier University

  While the reduction of operational energy and associated emissions has been the focus of the building design community in recent decades, focus must now be given to reducing the upfront or embodied energy and emissions of buildings. Embodied energy and emissions are those associated with the extraction, manufacturing, transportation, and end-of-life of building materials and assemblies. The present study evaluates, using life cycle assessment, the “cradle-to-gate” embodied energy and embodied carbon of the Office and Apartment ASHRAE 90.1-2016 DOE Prototype Buildings. Results from this analysis show that on average, the office prototype buildings consumed 938.2 MJ/m2 and emitted 77.0 kg CO2e/m2, while the apartment prototype buildings consumed 1168.4 MJ/m2 and emitted 102.0 kg CO2e/m2 on average. This study serves as a first step towards establishing reference building models for embodied carbon so that the building design community can realize a zero-carbon built environment by 2050.