Carbon Accreditation
Carbon accreditation looks at carbon sequestration, building physics, and life-cycle assessment (LCA) characteristics. LCA involves global warming potential (GWP), green-house gas (GHG) emissions, low-embodied energy, sustainability, and rural employment. LCA studies resource extraction, manufacturing, on-site construction, occupancy/maintenance, demolition, and recycling/reuse/disposal.
A few organizations have endeavored to generate a carbon sequester measurement tool, such as:
- CarbonPlus Calculator
http://www.itreetools.org/carboncalculator/entry.cfm - The i-Tree Harvest Carbon Calculator
https://harvest.itreetools.org/ - New Zealand Wood Carbon
http://www.nzwood.co.nz/house-calculator/ - EPA’s Household Carbon Footprint Calculator
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/household-carbon-footprint-calculator - EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator
https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator
A note on global warming potentials (GWPs): Some of the equivalencies in the calculator are reported as CO2 equivalents (CO2E). These are calculated using GWPs from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth Assessment Report. The Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator uses the AVoided Emissions and geneRation Tool (AVERT) U.S. national weighted average CO2 marginal emission rate to convert reductions of kilowatt-hours into avoided units of carbon dioxide emissions. For equations used in AVERT, visit https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gases-equivalencies-calculator-calculations-and-references.
The Global Alliance for Building and Construction (https://globalabc.org/, GABC) works towards the Paris Agreement Goals of limiting global warming to well below 2°C.
