{"id":1965,"date":"2010-11-03T11:45:49","date_gmt":"2010-11-03T11:45:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ihbconline.co.uk\/newsachive\/?p=1965"},"modified":"2010-11-03T11:45:49","modified_gmt":"2010-11-03T11:45:49","slug":"the-carbon-footprint-of%e2%80%a6-building-a-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=1965","title":{"rendered":"The carbon footprint of\u2026 building a house"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/strong>New homes may require far less energy to run than older properties, but building them generates plenty of CO2, a recent study shows that 80 tonnes of CO2 emitted in creating a newbuild two-bed cottage.
\n<\/span>
\nThe carbon footprint of building a house depends on all kinds of things \u2013 including, of course, the size of the house and the types of materials chosen.<\/p>\n

There is an estimate of 80 tonnes for the construction of a brand-new cottage with two bedrooms upstairs and two reception rooms and a kitchen downstairs. It\u2019s based on a study for\u00a0Historic Scotland. The study looked at the\u00a0climate changeimplications of various options for a traditional cottage in Dumfries: leave it as it is, refurbish, or knock it down and build a new one to various different building codes. We looked at the\u00a0climate change impact\u00a0over a 100-year period, taking into account the embodied emissions in the construction and maintenance as well as the energy used and generated by those living in the building.<\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly, the worst option by far was to do nothing and leave the old house leaking energy like a sieve. Knocking down and starting again worked out at about 80 tonnes CO2e whether the house was built to 2008 Scottish building regulations or to the much more stringent and expensive\u00a0Code for Sustainable Homes\u00a0Level 5 that demanded \u2018carbon neutrality\u2019.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how that total broke down for the carbon-neutral option:
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 Walls 60%
\n\u2022 Timber 14%
\n\u2022 Pipework and drainage 9%
\n\u2022 Floors 5%
\n\u2022 Slate roof 5%
\n\u2022 Photovoltaic panels 3%
\n\u2022 Other 4%
\n<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n


\nEighty tonnes is a lot \u2013 equivalent to five brand-new family cars, about six years of living for the average Brit or 24 economy-class trips to\u00a0Hong Kong\u00a0from London. But a house may last for a century or more, so the annual carbon cost is much less \u2013 and for all the new-build options, the up-front emissions from construction work were paid back by savings from better energy efficiency in 15\u201320 years.<\/p>\n

However, the winning option was to refurbish the old house, because the carbon investment of doing this was just eight tonnes CO2e, and even the highest-specification newbuild could not catch up this advantage over the 100-year period. Once cost was taken into account, refurbishment became dramatically the most practical and attractive option, too.<\/p>\n

If this one study is representative, the message for the construction industry is clear. Investment in the very highest levels of energy-efficiency for new homes is, even at its best, an extremely costly way of saving carbon. Investing in improvements to existing homes is dramatically more cost-effective.<\/p>\n

This article draws on text from \u2018How Bad Are Bananas? The Carbon Footprint of Everything\u2019 by Mike Berners-Lee.<\/p>\n

Guardian Green Living Blog: LINK 1<\/a> LINK 2<\/a>
\n<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Carbon Offset News: LINK<\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New homes may require far less energy to run than older properties, but building them generates plenty of CO2, a recent study shows that 80 tonnes of CO2 emitted in creating a newbuild two-bed cottage. The carbon footprint of building … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sector-newsblog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1965"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1966,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1965\/revisions\/1966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}