Recording now available for LCANZ webinar: A Science-Based Target Approach for buildings
Webinar – Thursday 8th August @ 1pm
LCANZ held the first in our new webinar series, featuring Chanjief Chandrakumar from Massey University.
A Science-Based Target Approach for buildings: The long wait is over
Climate change mitigation requires the construction of low/zero-carbon buildings, and this is a challenge for designers. The use of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) provides useful information to support eco-efficiency improvements and therefore, to reduce the climate impacts of building designs. However, it does not provide information about whether a proposed design aligns with achieving the global climate target of limiting global warming to below 1.5°C or 2°C.
To that end, this webinar will introduce an LCA-based top-down approach for setting climate targets for the whole life cycle of buildings in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. The proposed approach involves assigning a share of the 2°C global carbon budget for 2018-2050 to a country, to the construction sector of the country, and finally to a building. The approach includes a stock model that accounts for the projected growth in the number of buildings and associated climate impacts in a country up to 2050.
The usefulness of the approach is discussed by applying it to a reference stand-alone house in New Zealand, the most common residential building type in the country. This approach has potential to guide designers and other interested stakeholders in development of building designs enabling the building sector to operate within a selected global climate target such as the 1.5°C or 2°C climate target.
Our Speaker
Chanjief Chandrakumar is a Post-Doc at the School of Agriculture and Environment, Massey University, New Zealand. His research focuses on the development and implementation of absolute sustainability assessment methods. Currently, he is investigating the potential contribution of plant-based proteins to meeting the environmental sustainability targets of New Zealand within a Planetary Boundaries framework.
He was previously a Research Officer at Massey University where he investigated the development of Science-Based Target Approach for buildings and applied the approach to both residential and commercial office buildings in New Zealand. Prior to that he was a Research Affiliate at the University of Sydney, Australia, Visiting Researcher at the Technical University of Denmark, Denmark and Lecturer at the University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka.
Chanjief is a graduate from the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka with a first-class in Production Engineering and has recently completed (yet to be examined) his Ph.D. in Environmental Life Cycle Management at Massey University, New Zealand.