The Pilot Version of the UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard (The Standard) was launched in September 2024.  The Standard and associated documents can be downloaded here.

The Standard Pilot Version contains the technical details on how a building should meet the Standard, including what limits and targets it needs to meet, the technical evidence needed to demonstrate this and how it should be reported. In the future, projects will be able to verify that a project conforms to the Standard.
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We encourage organisations to target and adopt the Pilot version of the Standard on your buildings and assets.  
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In due course we will be seeking buildings that can be used to pilot test the Standard, to better understand its implementation. Find out more and register your interest via this link.

Revalu is a material data platform that enables to assess the impact across the design phase. It provides access to Europe’s largest EPD library and integrates 3rd party-verified data into existing workflows. It also offers climate insights, material innovation hub, and efficient documentation for ESG or LCA reporting. 

In the last 18 months, Revalu engaged with over 380 stakeholders across the industry to understand how they are addressing the current challenges of transitioning towards a more sustainable built environment and identified that the significant portion of the built environment's emissions stems from the choice of materials, with industry standards being notably polluting. Although alternatives exist, their environmental benefits are challenging to assess without clear data.

Furthermore, material data and sustainability resources are not uniformly available to everyone. Larger architectural firms can allocate resources to time-consuming explorations and collaborate with sustainability experts, whereas smaller firms and solo architects struggle to keep pace, resulting in a widening knowledge gap that hinders collective movement towards more conscious practices. 

Thus this material data platform is designed to empower all architects, regardless of firm size, with reliable data right at the design stage — where impactful decisions are made. 

Please try it out here.

In collaboration with UN Environment Programme, One Planet network - 10YFP, UNDP, and UN Climate Change, a Digital Toolbox for Building Circularity into Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) has just been launched at the Middle East & North Africa Climate Week.

This “Building Circularity into Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) - A Practical Toolbox” aims to support countries both in the global north and global south to identify, prioritize, implement and track circular economy interventions for increased ambition and implementation of their NDCs.

The toolbox aims to provide policymakers with a methodology, resources, and tools to help: 

1. Assess and identify GHG emissions hotspots from material use to prioritize sectors and/or sub-sectors in the NDC for circular economy interventions for increased climate ambition;
2. Assess and select circular economy interventions in prioritized sectors/sub-sectors for the NDC; 
3. Identify policy instruments and indicators for the implementation of selected circular economy interventions in the NDC; and
4. Track and report progress in the national Biennial Transparency Report (BTR) under the Paris Agreement.  

The toolbox is organized in four stages to leverage a country’s policy cycle. Each stage includes a set of steps and key questions to consider as well as tools and case studies. An overview of the stages and steps is below. 

Please read the full report here.

The Digital Construction Material Passport (DCMP) is a groundbreaking tool designed to enhance transparency and sustainability in the construction industry. Much like food products require detailed ingredient information, construction materials also deserve comprehensive data to support informed decision-making.

A material passport serves as a declaration of a construction product's essential information, such as its composition, production chemistry, and potential for sustainable construction. This passport is supplied by the manufacturer and accompanies the product through the supply chain. Material passports contain data on chemical content, resource potential, and the product's operational and environmental impact. While some environmental indicators are found in Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), material passports cover other vital information for construction processes.

Material passports and building passports are related but distinct concepts. Material passports provide product-specific data, while building passports include project-specific information like renovations. Material passports are a prerequisite for building passports.

The DCMP is an open-source free communication format for safely communicating detailed information about construction products, i.e. an electronic material passport specifically for construction products. It can contain information about ingredients, chemistry used in production and the products ability to be part of circular/sustainable construction as well as future resource flows. The data format is based on XML and is free to implement by anyone. To encourage its usage there is also a free editor available to create, read, and update files in this format.

Please find more information here

The cement and concrete sector is fully committed to achieving significant sustainability progress. The GCCA gathers key data recording the industry’s sustainability commitments. The GNR (“Getting the Numbers Right” or “GCCA in NumbeRs”) is a key tool in how key sustainability progress is monitored and reported.

The GNR database is now managed by the GCCA(Global Cement and Concrete Association), having transferred at the end of 2019 from the Cement Sustainability Initiative (an initiative run through the World Business Council for Sustainable Development). Data are collected according to the CO₂ and Energy Accounting and Reporting Standard for the Cement Industry.

To access the CO₂ and Energy Accounting and Reporting Standard for the Cement Industry Excel Spreadsheet and Internet Manual, in English or Chinese use following links: Excel Spreadsheet and Internet Manual, in English or Chinese use the following links:

• English version
• Chinese version (简体中文版网络手册).  

The GNR database is open and transparent to interested parties. This year GNR is migrated to a new, user-friendly platform. To support interested parties to use and interpret the comprehensive data, GCCA now provides detailed data and regional data on demand via the GNR Project Management Committee. This will also enable the provision of more tailored solutions to enquiries. 

Data is available for: 1990, 2000, and 2005 to 2021. The regions and countries for which data are available are listed here in accordance with anti-trust law and confidentiality requirements. The list of parameters and indicators available is available here.

The Cement CO2 Protocol stands as a pivotal guidance document for calculating carbon emissions in cement manufacturing and enjoys widespread adoption worldwide. Cement manufacturers globally rely on this standard for consistent measurement and management of carbon emissions.

Additionally, the Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA) maintains an extensive database aligned with this protocol, making it one of the most comprehensive resources for CO2 emissions data in the cement industry. This combined effort underscores the protocol's significance and its substantial impact on carbon reduction initiatives across the sector.

Explore further at https://www.cement-co2-protocol.org/en/.

The Information System for Environmental Performance in Construction (known by its acronym in Portuguese Sidac) allows the calculation of environmental performance indicators for construction products based on Brazilian data and on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) concepts. The first version of Sidac contemplates the indicators of primary energy demand and CO2 emission, from cradle to factory gate. It contains generic data for 86 different construction products and 40 basic supplies, based on verified Brazilian information. It can support the calculation of the embodied energy and carbon of Brazilian buildings, and supplier selection because the tool is also prepared to receive manufacturer-specific data. More details about the tool are available in the following research paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2023.138461

CAPSA is a digital building passport data platform, developed by CUES Foundation (one of the co-chairs of the GlobalABC Work Area 5: Building measurement, data and information) and in partnership including with the Horizon Europe framework as well as with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GlobalABC). 

A Building Passport (sometimes referred to as a Digital Building Logbook or (Electronic) Building File) is a whole life cycle repository of building information. It covers a building’s administrative documentation as well as data regarding its plot and location, its technical and functional characteristics, and its environmental, social and financial performance. In its fully digital realization, the Building Passport acts as a single point of input, access and visualization of all the information associated with a building. It is a living document, containing a mix of traceable static “as built” and continuous dynamic record‑keeping of performance data and information. Learn more from our report The Building Passport: A Tool for Capturing and Managing Whole Life Data and Information in Construction and Real Estate.

The CAPSA Digital Building Passport prototyping platform was developed to flank the strategic activities of the GlobalABC around the topic with a way to feasibility test ideas and methodologies. CAPSA consists of a smartphone app for data collection as well as a corresponding cloud-based data base. The smartphone app aims to enable non-expert users to generate robust and comparable data. Data collection focussed on hard and visible information, entered one info at a time. Besides direct data entry, photos are taken for context and image recognition purposes.

Download the CAPSA pamphlet to learn more. 

The Early Phase Integrated Carbon (EPIC) assessment is a whole life carbon tool built by EHDD to support climate-positive design decisions in early project phases when data is scarce but the potential for emissions reduction is high. To overcome the scarcity of data, EPIC uses a model that combines regionally-specific background data, forward-looking projections, peer-reviewed findings, and common sense assumptions to assess the relative impact of a variety of carbon reduction measures on a project’s embodied, operational, and landscape carbon footprints. EPIC is available open access at https://epic.ehdd.com Full documentation on the tool and its methodology can be found at https://www.epic-docs.dev/

ASHRAE Standard 228 sets requirements for evaluating whether a building or group of buildings meets a definition of “zero net energy” or a definition of “zero net carbon” during building operation. Standard 228 draws from ASHRAE Standard 105, among others, to address energy and carbon flows across a site boundary, their measurement, and their balance. It includes allowances for sites that lack opportunity to produce adequate renewable energy, while placing additional requirements on the use of external carbon and renewable energy in the calculation. The standard defines the calculation of energy in terms of source—a multiplier on the energy crossing the site boundary to include energy used or lost in extraction, generation and transit to the site. The main energy calculation is made in terms of annual average factors, but allowance is made for the calculation of individual hours where data available.