The Canada Green Building Council’s Zero Carbon Building - Design Standard Version 2 (ZCB-Design v2) Certification can be achieved for new buildings or renovations to existing buildings. The Embodied Carbon Report requirement can be met using One Click LCA to create a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of your project as well as a baseline if you plan to fulfill the certifications’ Impact & Innovation Requirements with a 20% reduction in embodied carbon.
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This certification has been created to assess commercial, institutional and multi-family buildings. The aim of the certification is to model zero carbon buildings, that is buildings that are highly energy efficient and which produce renewable energy onsite or procure carbon-free renewable energy in an amount sufficient to offset the annual carbon emissions associated with operations. Major renovations to existing buildings may pursue this certification provided they include HVAC, envelope, and/or interior renovations that require a new certificate of occupancy and/or prevent normal building operations from occurring while they are in process. Proposed changes of use to the building are also considered major renovations.

The Embodied Carbon Report requirement can be met by doing an LCA with One Click LCA.

The LCA must include all envelope and structural elements, including footings and foundations, and complete structural wall assemblies (from cladding to interior finishes, including basement), structural floors and ceilings (not including finishes), roof assemblies, and stairs. Parking structures are to be included; however, excavation and other site development, partitions, building services (electrical, mechanical, fire detection, alarm systems, elevators, etc.), and surface parking lots are excluded.
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Projects that wish to evaluate their embodied carbon more fully may elect to include materials beyond the structure and envelope at their discretion, provided they are reported as a separate line item. For example, the fit-up of interior spaces may provide opportunities for embodied carbon reductions.

Create a new design and enable the "Net Zero Carbon Tool 2023" tool.

Fill in the building materials query of the design either manually or by import. Add all of the materials required by the calculation scope (see above). This information will be used to calculate the raw material harvesting, transportation and manufacturing impacts in A1-A3.

Once the correct materials and quantities are provided, set the transportation distances from material manufacturer to the project site and transport methods. The default transportation distances can be set up from the project’s LCA parameters page. If they are chosen, any material will use the average distance unless a more specific one is given in the query. This information will be used to calculate the impacts of material transportation in A4.
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Check the material service life. This information will be used to calculate the material replacements for B4-B5. Material service life means how long each material will last in your building. If the service life is less than 60 years the material will have to be replaced. From an environmental impact point of view, this means additional emissions from the production of new material that is needed to replace the old one. Each of the materials in One Click LCA database has a default service life. However, as the exposure conditions of the materials may vary, it may be good to check that the service life matches the condition of your building. It is especially important to check the external wall and roof material service lives’ as the weather conditions may vary greatly between areas.
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Adjust the localisation of each material as needed (expert feature). This information will be used to compensate for any material data chosen from another area to match your project’s local material manufacturing conditions.
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​Fill in the building area query. This information will be used as a divider for the results in a separate result row and it will help you to understand how the results compare to other projects. Gross floor area is required.​

Set your calculation period as 60 years as the requirement for this certification.

After you have done one LCA calculation you can create as many additional designs as you wish either by copying the first one or by creating a new empty one. This can be used for creating a baseline. To copy a design click its name and choose 'Copy'. To create a new one press the '+ Add a design' button on the project main page.
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Applicants must also fulfill Impact & Innovation Requirements for the certification, and this can be achieved in a variety of ways, one being showing an embodied carbon reduction of at least 20% compared to a baseline building.
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The following criteria must be met for baseline buildings used to demonstrate a reduction in embodied carbon in the Impact and Innovation requirements.
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Service life: Consistent with the requirements for the LCA of the proposed building, the baseline building must also use a service life of 60 years.
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Scope: The LCA must demonstrate an embodied carbon reduction using the life-cycle stages A, B, & C. The analysis must include structural and envelope materials as detailed in the Embodied Carbon section. Projects that wish to expand the scope of the analysis to look for reductions elsewhere may do so provided both the baseline and the proposed building use the same scope.

Building equivalence: The baseline building must be equivalent to the proposed building. The following must be constant in both the baseline and proposed building:

Retrofit projects that use an existing structure for 50 percent or more of the final gross floor area are deemed compliant and are not required to model a baseline building.