Carbon
The Challenges:
There is increasing recognition of the impacts of climate change and extreme weather events and the need to reduce NZ’s carbon footprint. The Ministry for the Environment calculates that the NZ building sector is responsible for between 9% and 15% of the country’s carbon emissions:
Other assessments have estimated that our buildings are responsible for approximately 20% of NZ’s gross carbon footprint:
“Climate change presents one of the greatest challenges facing the world today. The built environment has a core part to play in how, as a society, we adapt and seek to mitigate the impacts… As the urgency for action to address rising carbon levels becomes critical, there will not be a quick fix or just one way to mitigate climate change. We all must find our own way to encourage action and transition to a low-carbon future… for the benefit of all New Zealanders.”
As well as our commitments under the Paris Agreement, NZ is a signatory to the Declaration de Chaillot, a UN agreement committed to decarbonising the built environment and promoting sustainable building practices globally:
How we can make progress?:
There are many initiatives under way to learn more, and to develop and refine new methods and technologies, in order to help reduce the carbon footprint of NZ buildings. Some examples of innovative thinking include:
Recent work by Massey University, BRANZ and MBIE on Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) and its application to improve the carbon efficiency of NZ buildings:
BRANZ: Building Elements: Testing Different Methodologies ►
Ministry for the Environment guidance on embodied carbon emissions associated with buildings:
BRANZ’s programme: Transition to a zero-carbon built environment, with the aim that by 2050 the building and construction industry is delivering net-zero carbon buildings in an affordable way:
BRANZ carbon calculators and tools:
BRANZ videos on reducing carbon:
NZ Green Building Council’s call for action with its Meeting Our 2030 Emissions Targets Report:“Almost a third of (the needed) savings (to meet NZ’s emissions budget) can be delivered by the built environment. This is equal to taking over 600,000 petrol cars off the road for five years.”
Other NZ Green Building Council advice:
MIBIE advice on cost-neutral low-carbon residential construction:
Sector initiatives including:
Scion’s Timber Unlimited programme:
Sector initiatives including:
Concrete NZ’s Sustainability programme, with a target of a 30% reduction in emissions by 2030 and a Roadmap to Net-zero carbon by 2050, including reporting, case studies and research:
“We’re not waiting for legislation, we’re actually doing it anyway, we’re decarbonising right now and passing that on to everybody. You don’t have to wait, every individual can make a difference.”
Bernice Cumming: Firth Industries Ltd
“Through the stages of design you are specifying materials, from the earliest stages of design V-Quest (NOW NEZO) can give you feedback on those materials even when just conceptual, allowing you to run comparative analysis of different materials to see which is the best material use in that type of building or in that methodology that you’re designing.”
Barry Lynch: Nezo
“Carbon footprint and the whole of life story is slowly starting to emerge, we’re starting to get our heads around what that means in term. Europeans are leading, we’re learning very fast.”
Martin Ball: NK Windows (2024)
“Carbon Life Cycle analysis is quite complicated, it involves a number of different modules – embodied carbon which is emitted in the construction of the building – also operational carbon... it can get quite complex.”
Barry Lynch: Nezo
“Look at the embodied carbon in building a new building and the embodied carbons that would be involved if you just renovated an existing building, are alot less.”
Dave Gunter: Coastal Designs
“It's also driving innovation – we’ve got some fantastic things like Firth Concrete looking at low potash concrete which will reduce the carbon in their concrete, they’re already starting to innovate to reduce their carbon .”
Barry Lynch: Nezo
“Firth concrete at least 10% to 20% less carbon – Infrastructure Sustainability Council baseline – standard for their concrete, decarbonisation the cement and the concrete, Firth are passing that through, you’re getting it anyway.”
Bernice Cumming: Firth Industries Ltd
“There are bioenhanced products that Kingspan are looking at – planet passionate, reducing carbon, becoming carbon zero by 2030 is a fundamental Kingspan goal. The whole business all around the world is focused on reducing carbon wherever we can – through our own manufacturing procedures and through the third parties and the transport, we look at every aspect of reducing carbon.”
Candice Smith: Kingspan Thermakraft
“Golden Bay Cement have displaced over 50% of their use of coal to heat their furnace, using materials from landfill, timber waste, over 3 million used tyres, chip and burn them to get furnace up to 1400 degrees Celcius.”
Bernice Cumming: Firth Industries Ltd
Many of our Superhome Partners and Participants are proactively working:
Bob Burnett Architecture and Dan Saunders Construction: Ngā Whare Pārara low-carbon and zero-carbon townhouses, Somerfield, Christchurch
Ngā Whare Pārara low-carbon and zero-carbon Townhouses ►►
nezo (formerly V-Quest): A sophisticated analytics and modelling system that assess the carbon, thermal performance, weight and cost of different options for a building to support decision making for the materials and design for optimal efficiency:
nezo ►►
Firth Concrete: All Firth concrete is now low carbon, 10-20% lower in carbon than conventional concrete – Firth concrete is made with NZ’s lowest carbon general purpose cement and SCMs (Supplementary Cementitious Materials) to further reduce the level of embodied carbon in the concrete mix:
Firth EcoMix® Low Carbon Concrete ►►Firth EcoMix® ►►ArchiPro: Firth, Low Carbon Concrete ►►
