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Whole Life-Cycle Carbon (WLC) emissions are the carbon emissions resulting from the materials, construction and use of a building over its entire life, including its demolition and disposal. It makes use of Life Cycle Analysis – an assessment and management framework, for evaluating the environmental impact of products and processes. A WLC assessment can provide a true picture of a building’s carbon impact on the environment, however, complex systems such as the built environment involve a unique set of calculation procedures when carrying out WLC analysis. This module sets out planning application requirements for developments to estimate, assess and reduce WLC emissions. The module will help students in understanding key contributors to emissions in the life cycle of buildings. Students will learn about methods for calculating WLC and understand how to avoid or mitigate emissions throughout buildings’ lives. The module considers how the WLC assessment should be approached and presented to support innovation, design, eco-labelling and green certificates. Students will gain technical skills and learn how to use a range of WLC assessment tools and techniques (Environmental Product Declarations, Embodied Carbon databases, Operational Emissions, Circularity and more). Performance benchmarking will be introduced. Frameworks for estimating the effectiveness of the re-use of existing buildings will be introduced, as well as methods of empowering communities to embrace sustainability in negotiations with local authorities and developers. Project Based Learning supplemented with workshops is designed to introduce new concepts, and to develop hands-on skills of importance to students’ projects.

The aims of the module are to:

• Provide an understanding of key contributors understanding key contributors of emissions in the life cycle of buildings.
• Provide an understanding of how to calculate, evaluate and reduce WLC emissions in buildings.
• Provide the ability to suggest improvements on existing and new buildings, for reducing their life cycle environmental impacts.
• Provide an understanding of the concepts of circularity in the built environment.

By the end of the module students should have:

• A solid understanding of the WLC emissions process, data requirements, and how to make use of the results.
• The ability to evaluate WLC emissions to assess a building’s carbon impact on the environment.
• The ability to conduct a WLC emission estimation and how it can be reduced through a range of case studies and hands-on exercises.

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