This article explains how regional reference buildings are generated by One Click LCA for Carbon Designer 3D and what is the background data used.
Data Sources
Building Codes
We examine local building regulations to ensure the reference building complies with regional requirements for energy efficiency and, in some cases, also other relevant aspects.
Local Partners
For specific regions, there have been local stakeholders that have commissioned or partnered up with us to develop and improve our models. For example, this list includes Statsbygg (Norway), Irish GBC, Sumitomo (Japan), Finnish Wood Industry Association and RTT’s thermal insulation manufacturers group (Finland) and more.
Local Experts
We conduct interviews and establish partnerships with architects, engineers, and builders in the region. Their insights on typical construction methods, material choices, and even recycled content levels in the region are invaluable. Additionally, One Click LCA's local employees in many different regions also support these developments.
Certification Schemes
When available, we reference established regional certification schemes like Verde Spain, GreenStar Australia, etc. to ensure data accuracy and alignment with recognized sustainability standards.
Research
We scour through the latest research, reports, and building codes to understand regional construction trends and material preferences.
Tailoring the baseline for each region
In almost all cases, our automatically generated building models aim to represent the typical (“median”) building for the given combination of selected region, building type and building frame. In the case of the Norwegian reference building, the model with the default structural frame aims to represent the average building in the market.
Regional variations
The regional variations can account for the following:
Typical constructions: We identify what are the most common local construction solutions for different building parts (e.g. typical external walls) and set them as default solutions or alternatives for different scenarios for the region.
Local environmental data: Many markets have a strong preference for the use of specific generic environmental profiles (e.g. regulatory LCA databases such as Boverket (SE) and co2data.fi (FI), or industry-standard databases like Okobau.dat (DE)). Such preferences are always taken into account, and in other cases, One Click LCA’s own generic data are prioritized. As a reminder, the latter are adjusted to the project’s country with the manufacturing localization method.
Thermal requirements: We examine local regulations and construction practices and create needed adjustments to ensure that we offer all commonly needed variations.
Typical material types: We examine whether there are any specific material types that are favoured for roofs, walls, foundations, etc, and if so, we ensure they are available as default or alternative options
Recycled material content: We examine what is commonly the recycled content of concrete and steel elements in the region as this can have significant influence in the environmental impacts. This part can have higher uncertainty and regional variations, but users can switch between alternatives.
Seismicity requirements: Several regions across the world have increased seismic activity, so we create additional structural frames that are calibrated for these conditions. This is a continuously evolving side.
Building type variations: Building type setup and building part ratios (e.g. ratio of internal wall to external wall area) that are used to set up the building frame are typically the same for all regions. One Click LCA can easily, though further improve them if more data becomes available.
What if a needed variation is missing?
An already available solution is to create a custom private template with desired construction adaptations that can be directly reused in Carbon Designer 3D by all the users in the same company account. For more info on this, refer to this article.
Users can additionally report any other requests to One Click LCA’s Customer Support team and our team will examine them at the earliest convenience.
Geometry variations per region
One Click LCA has a pre-set range of given dimensions and building part quantity ratios, which vary per building type. These data typically do not vary per region, but this could be enabled when the need arises. This includes for example, assumptions like “Building width to depth ratio”, “Internal floor height”, “External to internal wall ratio,” etc.
The geometry assumptions have been developed based on data from Eurocodes, research on typical construction practices and data given by the local partners. Column spacing and other structural-related data vary by building frame, and default / alternative building frames can vary per region.
One Click LCA is also able to easily do further regional adjustments if additional data and references are to be provided.
The above dimensions are directly visible and commonly editable during design creation, so users can make any adjustments as they see fit.
Based on these dimensions and building part ratios, the overall geometry is calculated for all new designs, and then the exact construction solutions that are used (e.g. wall type, etc) vary by structural frame, region and building type.
Indicative list of references and partners for each region
Carbon Designer 3D regions | Data (minimum compliance) | List of key references and partners for each region |
Australia | EN15804+A1 | Green Star AUS, Australian National Construction Code (NCC) |
California | ISO 21930 | ASHRAE 90.1. The California Green Building Standards Code. MIT researchers. Local external and in-house experts |
Denmark | EN15804+A1 (incl. BR18) | Bygningsreglementet (BR18). In-house experts. |
Finland (full LCA datasets) | EN15804+A1 | RTT, Finnish Wooden industry |
Finland (co2data.fi datasets) | co2data.fi and/or EN15804+A1 | RTT, Finnish Wooden industry |
France | INIES / EN15804+A1 | Local external and in-house experts, FPI France |
Germany | EN15804+A1 (incl. Ökobau.dat) | Local external and in-house experts |
Hungary | EN15804+A1 (incl. Ökobau.dat) | Local partners |
International | EN15804+A1 | External and in-house experts. Inputs from other regions. |
International (EN15804+A2 compliant) | EN15804+A2 | External and in-house experts. Inputs from other regions. |
Ireland | EN15804+A1 | Irish Green Building Council |
Italy | EN15804+A1 | Academia members from University of Bari. Local partners. |
Japan | EN15804+A1 | Sumitomo |
MENA | EN15804+A1 | Local in-house experts |
New Zealand | Branz and/or | Green Star NZ, local building codes for energy performance requirements |
Norway | EN15804+A1 | Local partners, klimagassregnskap.no data, Stasbygg |
Norway (DFØ) | EN15804+A1 | The Norwegian Agency for Public and Financial Management (DFØ) Norwegian reference model |
Spain | EN15804+A1 | Verde, local partners (GBCe) and in-house experts |
Sweden (full LCA datasets) | EN15804+A1 | Local partners, in-house experts, references from Norwegian region. |
Sweden (Boverket datasets) | Boverket and/or EN15804+A1 | Local partner, in-house experts, references from Norwegian region |
UK | EN15804+A1 | Local partner, external and in-house experts |
USA / Canada | ISO 21930 | ASHRAE. MIT researchers. In-house experts. |