C34 -- Upfront Carbon of a Non-Residential Building in Japan

Climate change is a severe problem, with natural disasters causing extensive damage to buildings and urban scale. Global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions should be reduced to prevent further acceleration of global warming. Whole life carbon emissions are the total GHG emissions, including operational and embodied carbon emissions, over the life cycle of buildings. Upfront carbon is sum of A1-A5: building material manufacturing and construction stage. Although the life cycle assessment guidelines of the Architectural Institute of Japan recommended that all categories be calculated, this study focused on the upfront carbon of a non-residential building. Inventory Database for Environmental Analysis (IDEA) and Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) were used for calculating upfront carbon. The results indicated that the upfront carbon was 783 kgCO₂-eq/m² of the total. Concrete (264 kgCO₂-eq/m²) and Steel (221 kgCO₂-eq/m²) were the superior to other materials in terms of emissions. The findings of this study are expected to fill a gap in the knowledge base for building decarbonization.