Without the ability to measure the current impacts of commercial buildings accurately and effectively, we cannot mitigate their impacts. Our work aims to create effective, affordable, and comparable pathways for mechanical and electrical (M&E) industry stakeholders to participate in the LCA process, assuring future access to high-quality, transparent, and comparable environmental data. As identified by the DOE Decarbonization Blueprint, there is still a lack of high-quality data and accounting methods needed to achieve the Commercial Buildings Integration Program goal of eliminating greenhouse gas emissions. PNNL’s work aims to reduce costs associated with the LCA process, thereby supporting progress toward DOE’s 2050 target for reducing embodied carbon emissions in the U.S. building sector. This integrated approach not only addresses cost reduction but also enhances the availability and accuracy of crucial data, advancing the overall goal of building decarbonization.
PNNL’s Role
PNNL’s work aims to create effective, affordable, and comparable pathways for M&E industry stakeholders to participate in the LCA process. By developing the M&E Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) data collection template, PNNL is building capacity to directly address the “Lack of high-quality data and accounting methods” identified in the DOE Decarbonization Blueprint. This LCI template utilizes existing and enhanced LCA approaches for products and buildings, which reduces barriers for stakeholders to participate in collecting, assessing, and sharing high-quality, transparent, data. This work also supports holistic integration of the DOE Blueprint Cross-Cutting Goals (i.e., equity, affordability, and resilience) by utilizing programmatic energy justice and equity metrics and recommended practices to measure and report on progress toward the Justice40 Initiative. One of the goals of this work is to reduce costs associated with the LCA process, thereby supporting progress toward DOE’s 2050 target for reducing embodied carbon emissions in the U.S. building sector. This work also contributes to DOE Blueprint Technology, Market, and Policy Milestone Objective 4 by aiding in the development of stock-scale inventory of material life cycle emissions LCI data, as well as developing industry averages to be used in future modeling. This integrated approach not only addresses cost reduction but also enhances the availability and accuracy of crucial data, driving forward the overall goal of building decarbonization.
Resources
- LCI Template for RTU
- To obtain a copy of the beta version of the LCI template for RTUs, email your request to LCI-template@pnnl.gov and provide your contact information (i.e., name, email, and organization)
- Read more on the Life Cycle Inventory Templates page
- Publications (below are a few relevant items)