Measures against climate change represent one of the currently greatest social challenges from a national and global view.
Up to 50% of the worldwide CO2 emissions can be directly or indirectly allocated to the building industry – so that its carbon footprint provides enormous potential savings.
DECARBONISATION FIRST pursues the thought that future decisions for building measures are taken on the basis of a considerably greater weighting of the costs due to the carbon footprint and at the same time the acceptance of the associated primary costs is increased.
The objective of the research project is to create a database with CO2-equivalents representative for Austria (“Cradle to Grave”) for the relevant building materials of infrastructures (dams/troughs/underground structures, bridges, retaining structures).
For this purpose a methodology for the connection of a life-cycle cost calculation with CO2 balancing (ÖNORM EN ISO 14040 Ökobilanz) considering the spreading of the input parameters is developed. This methodology is based on an inventory of the component-relevant main bodies.
For the performance of variant analyses of infrastructures a practical calculation tool is created which determines costs and CO2 equivalents over the whole life cycle (building, operation, demolition, disposal/re-use).
The methodology and the respective benchmarks and parameters are subsequently summarized in a guideline.
Services of VCE:
- Methodology for CO2 balancing in the life cycle of infrastructures
- GWP database
- Development of a calculation tool for variant analyses of infrastructures which determines costs and greenhouse gas emissions (kg CO2e) over the whole life cycle