Sustainable Architecture: Benchmarking Green School Design Through Material Performance Analysis
As global construction contributes nearly 40% of total carbon emissions, this research addresses the urgent need for sustainable school design by constructing a theoretical "greenest possible" school building benchmark using the EDGE Buildings App. The benchmark built from materials like rammed earth walls, cork insulation, and timber floor systems achieves a net-negative embodied carbon of 43.7 kgCO₂e/m², an 87.8% reduction from the conventional base case of 356.9 kgCO₂e/m², and dramatically improved U-values of 0.3 W/m²·K (roof) and 0.43 W/m²·K (walls). Two real-world school buildings in Sarjapur, Bengaluru Indus DP Block and Indus International Community School were assessed against this benchmark. Both rely heavily on concrete, cement blocks, and uninsulated aluminium or steel window frames, resulting in embodied carbon estimates of approximately 350 and 335 kgCO₂e/m² respectively roughly 8 times higher than the benchmark with very poor thermal envelopes...
The Relentless CO2 Emission from the Building Sector is becoming a Stumbling Block in the fight against Global Warming and Climate Change
The 2015 Paris agreement commitments to limit the Global temperature below 1.5°C and 2°C is the goal towards which all sectors are working. Currently the diminishing Carbon budget rate is more than 80% and the remaining will get exhausted by the next 9 years with the current emission rate (IPCC AR6 WGI). IPCC prediction says that 3.2°C will be the global temperature rise by 2100 even if the world relies only on Paris agreement commitments. At present 1.2°C is the increase in the global temperature and 40.5 GtCO2e is the current Global CO2 emission (Carbon Brief). 28-33 GtCO2 is the needed annual emission range to restrict temperature rise to 1.5°C by 2030 and to achieve this restrict in temperature 7.5 GtCO2 reduction is needed annually by 2030 from current emission rate. This paper discusses the current CO2 emissions from the building sector and projects trends for the future. The building sector is a significant contributor to CO2 emissions, with its impact extending across operational and embodied emissions. The building industry's future depends on its capacity to embrace sustainable practices, which will ultimately result in lower CO2 emissions and a more environmentally responsible built environment.