Lower carbon materials

This chapter provides guidance on reducing the embodied carbon of the following products and activities, which typically account for over 70% of the embodied carbon in the life cycle of office buildings. The steel industry promotes that steel buildings have lower embodied carbon compared to concrete and may also be lower than timber. The concrete industry states that the differences between concrete and steel buildings are quite small and insignificant when compared to operating CO₂ and that concrete can reduce operating carbon if its thermal mass properties are utilised. The report Carbon: Reducing the footprint of the construction process provides an estimated breakdown of CO₂emissions in England due to construction processes and associated transport in 2008. This is based on total emissions of 5 million tCO₂, which is equivalent to 47 tCO₂ per £million of contractors’ output.