Whole Life Carbon Assessment of Buildings: The Process to Define Czech National Benchmarks

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in addressing human-induced impacts on the environment, with a particular focus on transitioning to sustainability and achieving carbon neutrality. However, the current implementation of Whole Life Carbon (WLC) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in the construction sector in the Czech Republic is hindered by several challenges. These include gaps in stakeholders’ knowledge, limited availability of LCA data on construction products and buildings, insufficient market incentives, and low institutional capacity. This study, conducted as part of the INDICATE project, aims to streamline the process of WLC calculation and establish a consistent national assessment method specific to the Czech context. The project encompasses various phases, i.e., a case study collection of office, multi-family, single-family, education, and logistic hall buildings, followed by the development of a comprehensive unified materials database, classification of building parts and uniform work with the bill of quantities, stakeholder engagement, an LCA of case studies with a sensitivity analysis, and WLC policy suggestions, including the quality of the project data, simplifications, and a benchmarks definition. The Global Warming Potential (GWP) is calculated throughout the entire life cycle of each considered building, utilizing the EU Level(s) methodology incorporated in the OneClick LCA software. By adhering to these newly developed methodological steps, benchmarks for multi-residential buildings are shown. The same methodology could be replicated by stakeholders in other countries to enhance their evaluation processes and ensure consistent results across their projects.