MBIE has summarised its take on the New Zealand Emissions Reduction Plan. Building for Climate Change (BfCC) will be its tool to make this happen through legislation. We will finally be stepping up to designing for thermal performance (eg operational carbon) and embodied carbon.
At Sustainable Engineering, we’re doing our best to lay out a path for this to happen in practice. Our team now calculates operational and embodied carbon for EVERY project we work on. It’s challenging the first few times but once you build the tools it’s pretty straightforward.
From MBIE’s statement (in part):
“What the [Emissions Reduction] plan means for the building and construction sector
Under the plan, building and construction initiatives have five key focus areas:
- Reducing the whole of life embodied carbon of buildings
- Accelerating the shift to low carbon buildings
- Improving the energy efficiency of buildings
- Shifting energy use away from fossil fuels
- Establishing the foundations for further emissions reduction in the future.
How we’ll get there
Our climate change objectives will be achieved through a range of initiatives including regulatory change, incentives, technical tools, and advice and education. The Building for Climate Change programme will work with the building and construction sector to get these right, through each step and initiative we implement.”