By Yermys Peña
Climate change is the greatest environmental challenge facing the world today. Humans, by burning fossil fuels to fuel their economies, have increased CO2 emissions , a major contributor to the greenhouse effect and, consequently, to global warming and climate change.
What is decarbonization?
Decarbonization is the process of reducing carbon emissions , especially carbon dioxide (CO2 ) , into the atmosphere. Its goal is to achieve a low-emission global economy that reaches climate neutrality through the energy transition . We hear the concept of decarbonization in political speeches and environmental events, but unless it receives adequate attention from architects, change will not be possible.
An average building contains 75% operational carbon and 25% emitted carbon.
This means we must reduce demand through high-performance building envelopes, by selecting the right set of equipment and control systems, and then by using renewable energy
Strategies
Addressing decarbonization at three levels: The World Resources Institute presents a list of priority-ranked strategies that can be reduced to three main decarbonization procedures. Based on this, for buildings we can:
- Reducing operational carbon in existing buildings through energy efficiency
- Use renewable energy to cover the remaining low energy demand, ideally within the site.
- Reduction of embodied carbon in new buildings throughout their life cycle.
Another aspect to consider is extraction, as the building sector accounts for approximately half of all extracted materials and a third of waste generation. Therefore, eliminating its negative impacts and waste through reuse and recycling in our industry could have a tremendous impact on the global effort to end global warming.
For the Paris Agreement to succeed, architects must be prepared to reduce carbon emissions in the construction industry during the design phase. Considering all aspects of decarbonization holistically means using construction solutions, products with a low environmental footprint, reusing materials, conducting life cycle assessments, and promoting a circular economy.
The author is an architect, specializing in smart and sustainable cities.
CEO Partner of Construger architects and engineers.
IG @yermyspena
www.yermyspena.com
