Dr. Josephina Lindblom:

I will make three points on the cost question. I do not know the Irish situation in particular, but when I hear about building projects or national experiences where people are going ahead with this kind of thinking, they are not necessarily pointing to one or two low-hanging fruits specifically. Rather, they are saying that, if they are pushed to assess and report on whole-life carbon, they become aware of what it is and start to compare different design options, and when they do so, they realise that, without making enormous differences in what they have planned, they can impact whole-life carbon significantly. They also say that, if they had not needed to assess and report on it, they would not even have thought about it. It is not the case that someone can take a single large action and solve 20% of the problem. Rather, if someone is aware of small actions and learns how to work with and assess them, he or she can save 10% to 20% - that is what I typically hear – just by being aware that what he or she is doing has an impact on whole-life carbon.

Member states that are proceeding with this have realised that, if they want to save a total amount of carbon, it is much more efficient to look at the embodied carbon as well, that is, the part of the whole-life carbon that is linked to the materials and so on. If they do not do that and instead try to save the same amount of carbon just by making their buildings very energy efficient, it would be extremely difficult and costly. Looking at the whole picture is a much more cost-efficient way of saving the same amount of carbon.

Those who are working on saving carbon in a more targeted way say that saving carbon saves on cost. Embodied carbon is, in a sense, material and if someone can save material, he or she saves costs.