Source
https://www.branz.co.nz/pubs/research-reports/er86/ — original source (opens in a new tab; the file is not redistributed)
Summary
BRANZ ER86 (2024) is the Structural Engineering Society of New Zealand (SESOC) Sustainability Task Force’s practical guide to reducing the embodied carbon of structures. Built from a 2023 survey of SESOC members and follow-up focus groups, it distils the current state of low-carbon structural practice into a set of “Top Tips” for engineers — informational guidance with no regulatory-compliance status. For Neobiome Intelligence it supplies the structural-design strand of the low-carbon-construction concept: the practical levers (build less, reuse what exists, optimise material volumes, specify timber well) that reduce the carbon embodied in a community build’s frame and foundations.
Key claims
- claim: "ER86 (SESOC Sustainability Task Force, 2024) presents practical 'Top Tips' for reducing structural embodied carbon, drawn from a 2023 survey of SESOC members plus focus groups; it is informational and explicitly not a means of regulatory compliance or a performance-based embodied-carbon framework."
source_location: "Intro / disclaimer (pp.3–5)"
- claim: "The New Zealand construction sector is responsible for approximately 15% of the country's annual greenhouse-gas emissions; 'embodied carbon' is the total GHG associated with a structure's materials (manufacture, transport, construction), framed against the MBIE Whole-of-Life Embodied Carbon Emissions Reduction Framework (2020)."
source_location: "§'What is embodied carbon, and why are we trying to reduce it' (p.5)"
- claim: "The highest-leverage tips are about building less and reusing more: evaluate adaptive reuse of existing structures rather than building new (Top Tip #5); optimise rather than rationalise to cut material volumes — material efficiency starts with geometry and challenging the brief (Top Tip #12); and specify timber well (Top Tip #19)."
source_location: "Top Tips #5, #12, #19"
- claim: "Embodied carbon is assessed by structural material — steel, concrete, timber, aluminium, glass, plastics — and reduced through design optimisation worked with the supply chain to minimise material dimensions and volumes."
source_location: "Material sections; Top Tip #12 (Optimise don't rationalise)"Neobiome Intelligence relevance
- Low-carbon construction — the structural strand. ER86 supplies the practical structural-engineering levers behind the low_carbon_construction concept: the biggest carbon savings come from not building new (adaptive reuse) and using less material (optimisation), with timber as the preferred low-carbon structural material — directly relevant to how a Neobiome community frames and founds its buildings. With construction at ~15% of NZ emissions, structure is a material decarbonisation lever alongside operational energy. OT_046
- ⚠ Scope: practical design guidance — no kgCO₂/m² figures or costs; the quantitative data gap stays RT_212.
Research targets
Research gaps
- A NZ structural embodied-carbon dataset by material and element (kgCO₂e/m² or per-component) to quantify the reduction tips — ER86 gives the principles but no numbers (folds into RT_212).
Connections
Links to
Concepts (1): Low-Carbon & Bio-Based Construction
Referenced by
Concepts (1): Low-Carbon & Bio-Based Construction
EDT domains (1): D04: Sustainable Habitat & Building Technology