So, you’ve just finished construction on an office refurbishment project and you’re feeling pretty pleased with how it’s gone. The client is happy, the building looks great, and you managed to use some low carbon alternatives. But is it actually as low carbon as you think? How can you know for sure?

Carbon counting and embodied carbon assessments are increasingly being applied to quantify the materials used in construction, but how accurate do we need to be and what should we be including?

At Webb Yates we have a relatively simple carbon counting spreadsheet that we ask our engineers to use on every project – even those we know will perform badly. The Institution of Structural Engineers has a very similar tool available for anyone to download for free on its website.

But this is just the structural part of the picture; we then need to consider the internal and external walls, the finishes and the services, and compare that to the new floor area we’ve created. The calculated values can then be compared with targets set by the RIBA. Or LETI. Or the UK Green Building Council … and that is part of the problem.

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