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Embodied Energy in Building Structures BEAM PLUS EU3 Embodied Energy
John Herbert
Director
The embodied energy (EE) concept is straightforward, it
describes the use of energy for all the processes including
mining, crushing, processing, assembling, manufacturing,
packaging and transporting materials to the job site.
When materials arrive on site, the energy has already
consumed, we call it embodied energy because it is a burden
that is tied with the material forever, forget cradle to
grave, its forever.
The BEAMPLUS New Building, credit EU3, encourages an
embodied energy assessment at the concept stage, to give
vital knowledge to designers before key decisions are made.
Under credit EU3, if two or more options are examined,
and the option having the lowest embodied energy is
choosen, an extra bonus point can be earned.
Providing embodied energy data to the designer at an
early stage, hoping that information will inform and
influence the choice of materials BEFORE commencing the
design. Calculating the embodied energy of a completed
building is a valueless mathematical exercise, the key
decisions have already been made years.
A modest proposal, EMSD has published embodied energy
data set (in the LCCA tool) for most construction materials,
using that data, embodied energy can be easily assessed for
every building project, and publication of that data for
example embodied energy per sqm would better inform our
decision making processes.
Like it or not, sustainability and energy are two sides of
the same coin. To understand and apply sustainability
principals requires an in depth knowledge of energy.
Construction and Demolition Waste
In the building sector, after the useful life of the building
tpyically its demolished and the waste shipped to a landfill
site. Critically, that waste also includes the embodied
energy (the energy used in its production), the embodied
energy it not lost, it doesn't disappear, its tied with
those material forever.
Now considering that certain materials, such as ferrous metals,
non-ferrous metals, and glass and the like are reversible, and
can be continously recycled to produce new material.
Take glass as an example, glass requires recycled glass,
known as cullet, to be used in the production process for
new glass.
The new glass includes the embodied energy from its
production AND the embodied energy tied to the recycled
glass. Therefore, actual embodied energy is the sum of the
energy used in the recycled glass production, and the
energy used for the new glass production.
Practically, determining the embodied energy in a new
material is difficult enough, without considering the
embodied energy embedded from the use of recycled
materials which in all likelyhood will contain
some recycled material.
With the subject matter expertise, to order an
embodied energy report for your project call us today!
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