Source
https://www.branz.co.nz/pubs/bulletins/bu679/ — original source (opens in a new tab; the file is not redistributed)
Summary
BRANZ Bulletin 679 (2022) is an introduction to calculating the whole-of-life carbon footprint of a house — the method, not the numbers. It explains that a building’s greenhouse-gas emissions split into embodied (the carbon in the materials) and operational (the energy and water used in occupation), that footprinting should be done early in design when alternatives can still be compared, and that carbon footprinting is likely to become a building-consent requirement with caps on embodied carbon. For Neobiome Intelligence it supplies the measurement-methodology strand of the low-carbon-construction concept and the regulatory trajectory that makes materials carbon a design parameter.
Key claims
- claim: "A building's greenhouse-gas emissions divide into two categories: embodied GHG (due to manufacture, delivery and use of building materials) and operational GHG (due to energy and water use by the building occupants); the whole-of-life carbon footprint combines both, following the MBIE Whole-of-Life Embodied Carbon Emissions Reduction Framework (2020) module structure."
source_location: "§1.0.2; Figure 1 (p.X)"
- claim: "Carbon footprinting should begin early in the design process, before key decisions are locked in, so designers can compare the carbon implications of multiple design alternatives; leaving it until late in a project, when crucial design decisions are locked in, makes change difficult, expensive or even impossible."
source_location: "§1.0.7"
- claim: "Within the next few years, the carbon footprint of a proposed building is likely to become a required part of a building consent application, with likely caps on the embodied carbon allowable in new buildings; carbon limits already apply under voluntary schemes such as Homestar and Green Star."
source_location: "§1.0.3–1.0.4"Neobiome Intelligence relevance
- Low-carbon construction — the measurement strand. Bulletin 679 gives the low_carbon_construction concept its accounting frame (embodied + operational, whole-of-life) and the regulatory direction of travel (likely consent requirement + embodied-carbon caps) — the reason a Neobiome build should account for materials carbon, not just operational energy, and do so early when design choices are still open OT_047.
- ⚠ Scope: introductory methodology — no embodied-carbon values or costs (those live in EPD/LCA databases; data gap = RT_212).
Research targets
Research gaps
- A worked NZ whole-of-life carbon footprint for a community-scale dwelling (embodied + operational, by module) — to connect this method to the model and quantify the materials-carbon lever (folds into RT_212).
Connections
Links to
Concepts (1): Low-Carbon & Bio-Based Construction
Referenced by
Sources (3): OT_129 · OT_134 · OT_135
Concepts (1): Low-Carbon & Bio-Based Construction
EDT domains (1): D04: Sustainable Habitat & Building Technology