Embodied Carbon is a service (available in this GitHub repository) maintained and developed by the Global Earthquake Model (GEM) Foundation that provides access to data and maps of the embodied carbon associated with the seismic damage repair and replacement of residential, commercial and industrial buildings worldwide. This service can be used in various studies on the built environment, such as: i) to provide benchmark data on the embodied carbon of different building typologies; ii) to assess the environmental impact of natural hazards on the built environment; and iii) to assess the impact of different forecasts of urbanization on the global carbon budget.

To develop a database of Replacement Embodied Carbon for various building typologies we have identified the primary building typologies in terms of lateral load resisting system and main construction material (classified with the GEM Building Taxonomy v3.1) with which we construct buildings today in Europe. For each building typology we have cataloged the main structural members and non-structural components, their construction materials and their quantities (per square metre of built area).

The replacement embodied carbon encompasses emissions from various life-cycle stages, including material production (modules A1-A3) and construction (modules A4-A5) of a new structure, as well as end-of-life processes (modules C1-C4) of existing damaged buildings. These modules are defined based on the European standard EN 15978. Embodied carbon factors for each component have been collected from a number of online, open resources (e.g. Environmental Product Declarations from databases of different European countries). For each building typology we have combined the quantity of components with their respective carbon factors in order to obtain the replacement embodied carbon per square metre of built area. Relevant data is accessible through a dedicated GitHub repository.

Illustration to demonstrate the components of embodied carbon, operational carbon and whole life cycle carbon (inspired by RMI)*.

To create Maps of the Replacement Embodied Carbon of European Buildings, we have built upon the European exposure models developed and released by the EFEHR European Seismic Risk Services. These models describe the spatial distribution of existing building classes in terms of built area for 44 European countries. We have reprocessed these models by integrating the replacement embodied carbon, as the environmental equivalent of the replacement cost. Replacement values were assigned under the assumption of rebuilding existing assets with modern practices to ‘build back better’. This resulted in the first version of the exposure map benchmarking the replacement embodied carbon of the European building stock (web services available here).

Embodied Carbon exposure map of the European building stock.

To expand traditional seismic risk metrics and address the environmental impact of earthquakes, we introduce the concept of Average Annual Embodied Carbon (AAEC). We have computed the AAEC for each European country, assuming a direct relationship with the average annual economic loss ratios (AALRs) from the latest GEM’s Global Seismic Risk Model. Using this approach, we have produced the first-ever European seismic risk map highlighting the environmental toll of earthquakes (web services available here). Further details on AAEC for each country can be found in the GitHub repository.

Embodied Carbon seismic risk map of the European building stock.

*Attribution link: Icons made by Good Ware from www.flaticon.com.