ABSTRACT
This chapter looks how the demand and the subsequent supply break down. It shows clearly that although carbon emissions from UK sources have been dropping steadily for the past two decades, overall emissions are rising, with the post-2008 economic crisis creating the recent fall. 'Steelmaker Tata, with plants in South Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire, is promoting steel systems that reduce energy consumption in buildings said to account for about 40 percent of carbon emissions', or 'Fifty percent of carbon emissions come from the construction and operation of our built environment'. In 2010, the Low Carbon IGT final report considered the 50 percent claim in order to bring greater clarity to the generality of the figure. Embodied carbon calculations include the outputs from the extraction, processing, transportation, construction, maintenance, repair and ultimate disposal of materials. Numerous studies have been carried out to establish the carbon emissions from individual buildings in order to establish benchmarks for different building types.
