Amiri, Ali, Nargessadat Emami, Juudit Ottelin, Jaana Sorvari, Björn Marteinsson, Jukka Heinonen, and Seppo Junnila. "Embodied Emissions of Buildings – A Forgotten Factor in Green Building Certificates". Energy and Buildings. Accessed January 08, 2025. https://www.sciencedirect.com/...
Gregory Autin | January 8, 2025
As a points-based green certification, LEED assigns 110 points – the highest level, platinum (80 + points), accredits only 3 out of a total of 110 points directly to embodied emissions. In BREEAM, 12 points (8%) are directly related to material selection, of which 5 points (3%) are based on life cycle assessment (LCA). Studies using LCA to evaluate environmental impacts mainly consider operational emissions generated during the operation phase. Initial (pre-use) embodied emissions are seldom the focus. The number of points allocated to embodied emissions is disproportionately low in both the LEED and BREEAM building environmental (green) certification systems.
