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BRE helps build database to help reduce carbon emissions from construction
  • Strategic advisory
  • Nov 10, 2021
  • Katy Newman

BRE helps build database to help reduce carbon emissions from construction

A lack of data was preventing the construction industry from actively measuring carbon emissions, so BRE and partners developed a new carbon database.

Testing the Built Environment Carbon Database: A Collaborative Effort

BRE is collaborating with other industry leaders to develop a new Built Environment Carbon Database.   

A lack of reliably available and consistent data has been one of the barriers preventing the construction industry from actively measuring and reducing carbon emissions.  

BRE is working with RICS, the UK Green Building Council, the Carbon Trust, RIBA, the Institution of Structural Engineers, and the Institution of Civil Engineers to create the Built Environment Carbon Database (BECD), which will become the lead source for the construction industry to measure and reduce carbon.

 

As our understanding of the impact of embodied carbon increases, it will become even more important for asset owners and project managers, at all stages of the design and construction process, to understand the true carbon impact of their work.

The new database will bring together existing data sources in a single free to access and easy to use platform. It will also store new carbon assessments and generate both project-level and product-level benchmarks such as the Environmental Product Declarations that BRE currently offers.    

In a move towards the development of the BECD the technical details of two of the database sections are being developed ready for Spring 2022. The solution will also be available for its users to provide feedback.  

More detailed information about how the database is being developed is available in the  BECD White Paper ‘BECD Philosophy and Programme 2021’.