This is part of International Industrial Ecology Day. Please register at EventBrite or join directly on Teams
Hosted by: Eugene Mohareb (University of Reading), Session Time: 11:00 am GMT
Increasing value is being placed on whole-life accounting in urban areas, as well as avenues of reducing material demand and associated life cycle impacts. For example, the UK’s public procurement guidance in the 2022 Construction Playbook highlights the need for whole-life accounting, net-zero strategies, and circular economy initiatives. Beyond public works, the Companies Act (2022) requires large firms to report on strategy related to social impacts, human rights issues, and environmental implications of their operations including climate change risks, emissions quantification and mitigation. This leads to questions of what are the implications for built environment professionals, which data resources are available to to understand life cycle impacts of projects, and what further support is required to meet our broader urban sustainability ambitions beyond 2050 carbon targets. This panel will discuss applications of life cycle thinking in the built environment, with topics including embodied carbon, data uncertainty, resource circularity assessments, and assessment of local biodiversity gains. Presentations will run for ~45 minutes, with 15 minutes for Q&A.
11:00 – 11:05 am GMT: Introduction
11:05 – 11:15 am GMT: “Resource use circularity: a case study of UK car-based mobility” Gabriel Carmona Aparicio
11:15 – 11:25 am GMT: “Assessing life cycle impacts of buildings – is our data good enough?” John Connaughton
11:25 – 11:35 am GMT: “Local and life cycle ecosystem impacts of urban green roofs: using energetics to quantify the local biodiversity gain associated with urban green infrastructure” Adam Mason
11:35 – 11:45 am GMT “Built environment as a pathway for reducing embodied GHG” Shoshanna Saxe
11:45 – 12:00 pm GMT – Questions to the panel