This article reviews the guidelines for the use of the 'Low-carbon Assessment' tool in accordance with the latest 12/2024 statement version of the Low-carbon assessment published by the Ministry of the Environment.

The tool enables calculations for building materials using product-specific environmental declarations, emission values from the national emissions database or emission values from other available generic databases.

According to the methodology, the following life cycle stages are included in the assessment of the building's carbon footprint:

According to the low-carbon assessment method, the carbon footprint is reported separately for the building and the construction site. The parts included in the evaluation are divided according to Talo2000 classification, shown in the below table:

After creating the project, the software will ask you to specify the LCA parameters which you would like to use in the calculation. For calculations which are done with the low carbon assessment tool, it is recommended to use the following LCA parameters:

You should choose ‘product-specific service life’. Please note that in the Ministry of the Environment's method, you should use the service life according to the guidelines of the Building Information Foundation (RTS). The product-specific service life option determines the service life of materials according to the service life declared in the product's environmental declaration, so if the service life is not documented for the material, the service life may have to be changed manually to match the service life which is specified on the RT card.

The modes and distances of transportation of materials are automatically added in accordance with the transport data of the national database for all materials from year 2022 average (78km, of which 90% is highway driving, as well as 10% city driving). The transport distances are updated according to updates in CO2data.fi. Additionally transport distances can also be edited separately for each material line if you want to add more detailed project-specific data to the calculation.

Not used in the tool

End-of-life should be set to 'Use EPD End of life calculation method' and Country specific end of life scenario to Finland (CO2data). With these selections End-of-life emission impacts are modelled using data from the national emissions database for waste treatment of different types of materials. Additionally D module benefits for carbon handprint are calculated based on the CO2data values.

Select 'Finland' from the dropdown menu to get typical amount of material going to waste during the construction phase (A5). This is shown as percentage on Building Material query and can be edited row-by-row if more exact waste amounts are available.

When you have created the first design for your project, you can include data in your design by clicking 'Input data' under the design name. You would need to fill in at least the mandatory data for your design in order to get results for your design. All mandatory parts are marked in red.

In this questionnaire, you would need to fill the heated net area of the building and the construction site area. Since the tool gives results in kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent per square meter, the tool uses these values to divide the results.

In this query, the amount of cement contained in concrete products used in the building can be entered to assess post-use carbonation. Select the available dataset 'Carbonisation of concrete in building structures, 100 years, per kg of cement' from the drop-down menu and enter the amount of cement used in the building in kilograms according to the instructions of the method version.

According to the Low carbon assessment method, a maximum of 50 years should be used as the assessment period, even if the service life of the building is assumed to be longer. The calculation period can also be shorter and then the expected service life of the building should be entered (e.g. a temporary building which is expected to stay 10 years before demolition / removal). Enter the length of the assessment period as a number of years on this query.

In this query, enter the building's annual consumption of electricity, district heating and fuels. For each item, use the energy profile according to the assessment period so that the results take into account the future emission reduction in energy production. For example, the data set 'Electricity, Finland, benefit allocation method (2024-2073, for 50 year service life)' is used for electricity consumption during the 50-year assessment period. In accordance with the national database, prefer primarily benefit allocation method -named datasets.

If the building produces energy to be delivered outside the building, you can add this questionnaire in section '5. Exported Energy'. In this case, use the same dataset as for purchased energy, so that the potential benefits of energy production are calculated using the same emission factor. The exported energy is shown in carbon hand print results and considered a benefit of your building.

Select the construction site scenario by building type, as well as demolition scenario (C1) for this query. Alternatively if you have exact data for construction site operations from construction phase, you can leave the first section empty and input exact energy consumption to section 3:

Building materials should be filled with all materials from the components included in the assessment, as well as their quantities, using the resources found in the software database. Depending on the material, the quantity can be added either in volume, area or mass.

You can use both product-specific environmental declarations and general emissions data from the national database for the assessment. If a suitable product cannot be found among these, an alternative environmental declaration for a similar product or a general data set published in another data source can also be used as a substitute product.

According to the version of the method, environmental declarations in accordance with the EN 15804:2019 +A2 standard should be used primarily in the calculation. Therefore when one is searching and adding for materials, EPDs and generic data which is aligned with this standard will come as search result.

For each material, you should also specify which building part they belong to by selecting the correct option from the Building Part drop-down menu. This selection determines the classification of the environmental impacts of building elements in the result view and determines whether the material emission data is reported in the carbon footprint of the building or construction site.

To specify the service life of each product row, as well as the mode and distance of transportation, press the default value that is provided for the material at these points. The software automatically calculates, depending on the service life, how many times the product is changed during the evaluation period. Emissions from transportation are determined by the mass of materials, the distance and the transportation method.

If the construction project is at an early stage and the technical building systems are not yet known in detail, the table values of the technical building systems published in the national database can be used to assess them. You can find these building systems by using the building type as a search term.

In case the building material has bio-based materials and they are expected to stay in the building at least 100 years, you can check the box for biogenic storage and calculate the biogenic carbon as a benefit for your building (results are shown in the D module handprint).

Importing building materials from external software is possible through various supported software (Revit, SimpleBIM, Trimble Connect) or by using the excel template found on our customer help centre. You can find a list of supported data modelling software and an excel spreadsheet template created for import here: Supported Integrations.

Modelling of early-stage buildings is also easy with the Carbon Designer 3D modelling tool we offer as an add-on. More information about this tool can be found here: Carbon Designer 3D.

You can view the results of the calculation either by clicking on the 'Results' button at the top of any questionnaire page or on the front page of the project in the data entry drop-down menu for each design.

In accordance with the statement version of the Ministry of the Environment's method, the results will be reported separately for the building and the construction site according to Talo 2000 classification. The results page has a separate graph for the carbon footprint and carbon handprint.

The building's carbon footprint report contains emission data for the life cycle phases according to the scope of the method. By default, the results are reported as emission effects before, during and after use. You can open each of these sections to see more detailed life cycle phase emissions data in your project.

The carbon handprint of the building and the construction site consists of potential emission benefits that would not be generated without the building. These results are reported as negative emissions data, reflecting potential emission reductions from recycling, reuse or energy recovery potential of building materials.

The carbon handprint also includes emission reductions from any exported energy, the carbon storage of organic materials and the carbon sink of cement-based products, i.e. carbon sequestered in carbonation.

Rakennustuoteluettelo - the bill of materials can be downloaded from the 'More Actions' tab together with the results summary tables

The data published in the national emissions database can be viewed at co2data.fi. New data published in the emissions database is added for use in the tool on a monthly basis.