Elmhurst are pleased to provide support and expertise to The Construction Carbon Footprint Scheme in their white paper to the Climate Change Committee proposing an independent certification scheme for assuring the quality and overseeing the life cycle analysis of buildings.

Life cycle analysis (LCA) is a method used to evaluate the environmental impact of a product, in this case a building, through its life cycle, including the extraction and processing of the raw materials, manufacturing, distribution, use, and final disposal.

The Construction Carbon Footprint Scheme,  a newly formed organisation set up by Tom Scott and Gilbert Lennox King,  has outlined a model that can produce robust life cycle analysis of buildings and, for those that are required to utilise offsetting to achieve zero carbon, a method by which it can be controlled and monitored.

Although not yet in regulations some customers and stakeholders are demanding that buildings are “zero carbon” and yet there is no nationally agreed methodology for establishing what that means, no quality assurance to ensure the calculations are meaningful and no process for ensuring that commitments are delivered.

Elmhurst Energy’s Martyn Reed was pleased to support the work done by the Construction Carbon Footprint Scheme and commented “for decades we have discussed the best way to deliver life cycle analysis in the construction sector and several organisations have developed data and tools for this purpose. Obviously how a building is designed, built and occupied has a significant bearing on the carbon emissions. Whilst there are many a challenges to overcome it is obvious that it is a problem that needs to be resolved and that Elmhurst members (commercial and residential) are ideally placed to become part of a quality assured solution.”

Read the white paper from the Construction Carbon Footprint Scheme

Find out more about the Construction Carbon Footprint Scheme