THOUGHT LEADER

Let ’ s consider net zero buildings first . Look at a typical commercial office building . Typically , these buildings will use around 70 % of their carbon emissions through operation – heating , cooling , management , etc – with 30 % being embodied carbon emissions – concrete , steel , materials – that are typically categorised as Scope 3 emissions .

The challenge is to focus on reducing operational emissions without increasing the embodied carbon emissions .

Very quickly we consider retrofitting – it ’ s estimated that 50 % of the buildings that will be here in 2050 are already in use today . That means that what ’ s here is going to be used for a long time , but that ’ s not always the most efficient stock .

A typical existing building has a carbon intensity of around two megatons of carbon dioxide per square metre . If you look at a brand new building with the most modern technology from the materials itself , double pane windows , to the control and automation , that carbon intensity plummets to 0.6 megatons of carbon dioxide . But there ’ s quite a bit of embodied carbon to build that .

Retrofitting is where you take an existing building , but instead of leaving it as is with the technology materials , retrofit it . If you ’ re able to retrofit a typical commercial building , you can have half of the carbon emissions of a brand new build . In fact , a sixth of what you might call an existing building left unchanged .

106 February 2025