A Common Language for CO2 performance of

BuildingsDr Rajat Gupta

Consultant, UNEP-SBCIrgupta@brookes.ac.uk

Buildings Under UNFCCC Flexible Mechanisms

14th March 2011, Bonn, Germany

Sustainable Buildings and Climate InitiativeUnited Nations Environment Programme

www.unep.org/sbci

MEMBERSHIPwww.unep.org/sbci

Sustainable Building Index

Seat (S)Vice Chair (VC)SBCI Donor (D)SBCI Coordinator (C)Steering Committee (SC)Sustainable Buildings (SB)SBCI Board of Directors (Board)Technical Advisory Committee (TAC)

SC Members: The SC shall be a balanced multi-stakeholder committee consisting of eleven UNEP-SBCI Members representing a balance of industry interests designated according to the following seats: • Coordinator (0) (occupied by SBCI staff);• Sponsor (1) (occupied by SC Sponsor);• Research Institution (2);• Not-for-Profit (2);• Private Sector (2);• Product Manufacturer (2);• Local Government (1); and• National Government (1).*The SC shall have balanced representation from developing and developed countries.

CHAIR

Policy Approaches

Appliance standards, Taxation

Energy performance contracting

Mandatory auditing Tax exemtions

Public benefit charges CDM Cap and Trade

Building codes

Negotiated agreements Utility DSM

Cooperative procurement Detailed billing

Labelling White certificates

Information `Public leadership programs

Subsidies& grants

Common Carbon Metric

Standardization of building Indicators, Metrics, & Protocol: Establishing Energy Performance and GHG emissions Baselines

Target PerformanceBaseline PerformanceUse per occupantUse per m2

By Region

Ener

gy u

se in

kW

h

Requirements1. Climate performance data need to

follow consistent definitions and protocols to be comparable.

2. Definitions and protocols applied for data collection need to be universally applicable regardless of the type and location of the buildings.

3. Definitions and protocols need to be applicable at the individual building level, as well as at aggregated levels at city, regional or national level.

4. Definitions and protocols need to be practical and account for data gaps and weak data quality.

www.unep.org/sbci

The Common Carbon Metric (CCM)

Measuring Energy Use & Reporting GHG Emissions from Building Operations

Energy

kWh/m2/yr

Emissions (equivalent (e))

kgCO2e/m2/yr

kgCO2e/occupant/yr

The Metric

A methodology used to define buildings climate impact

Consistent with principles and standards for environmental performance assessments (ISO standards and WRI/WBCSD Greenhouse Gas protocol)

Meets the requirements that reporting is measurable, reportable and verifiable (MRV)

Allows for bottom-up, and top-down data compilation

CCM methodology Top-down approach:

Performance of the whole (regional, city or national level) is characterized at a coarse level using estimated data on fuel and electricity consumption.

Bottom-up approach: Performance of individual case-study buildings is characterized at a fine level using measured data on fuel and electricity consumption. Ideally sample size will be statistically valid, enabling verification of the whole.

CCM Phase I

• First draft of the CCM was released at COP15 in Copenhagen in December 2009

• Implementation of CCM was launched on 19 May 2010 in Paris through a pilot phase (Phase 1) to:

• Road-test the methodology in an Excel-based platform (Nine participants)

• Coordinated stakeholder review (19 organisations)

• This helped to: • Uncover practical issues surrounding the implementation

of the CCM• Develop consensus methodologies for unresolved

aspects of assessing building performance• Prioritize areas for future research

Nine participants

Performance metrics computed for a total of:

- 49 individual buildings (total area: 1.48 km2)

- 5 larger stocks (or Wholes) (total area: 176.60 km2)

Organization Type of entry Region / Location Hydro Construction Bottom up Bellenberg, Germany and France, Toulouse The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI)

Bottom up India

Skanska AB Top down and bottom up Solna, Sweden Autodesk Top down and bottom up US, cities unknown Lend Lease Corp. - UK Top down and bottom up Various cities - Australia Top down and bottom up Sydney Building & Construction Authority

Top down and bottom up Singapore

Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB)

Some data entered; no performance metrics computed due to incomplete dataset

South Africa, various cities

Urenio.org Some data entered in top-down approach N/A ITC Limited, India Bottom up ITC Green Centre, Gurgaon, India

CCM Phase I Pilot

Performance of a building stock at the city level

Building category kWh / m2 kg CO2e / m2 kWh / occupant

kg CO2e / occupant

Average performance baselines for specific building types, measured through the bottom-up approach Office 222.8 151.9 8,387.9 5,568.1 Retail 221.5 147.0 7,859.0 5,217.0 Hotel 302.8 142.8 14,305.3 6,745.3 Other 156.0 103.6 2,736.1 1,816.3

Performance baselines for the Whole, measured through the top-down approach Non-residential 282.4 182.8 5,831.7 3,774.6 Residential 51.5 32.8 3,733.7 2,376.5

CCM Phase I Pilot

Red cells indicate that average performance of a set of buildings of a given building type, as measured through the bottom-up approach, is worse than the performance of the whole’s non-residential building stock.

Performance baselines of a single building type

Building name kWh / m2 kg CO2e / m2 kWh / occupant kg CO2e / occupant

Building 1 128.1 71.6 3258.8 1820.5 Building 2 358.0 137.1 8831.6 3382.7 Building 3 438.1 244.8 5457.9 3049.1 Building 4 221.9 87.1 5541.8 2174.4 Building 5 799.5 442.3 13551.2 7496.2 Building 6 403.4 188.5 15446.6 7216.2 Building 7 124.9 69.8 3179.4 1776.2 Building 8 288.9 126.6 13109.1 5745.8 Building 9 393.0 187.8 7114.9 3400.2 Building 10 188.7 105.4 3081.0 1721.2 Building 11 211.8 118.3 5811.3 3246.5 Baseline for portfolio 323.3 161.7 7671.2 3729.9

CCM Phase I Pilot

Performance baselines for multiple building types

Building kWh / m2 kg CO2e / m2

Retail buildings Building Black 409.3 191.8 Building Blue 82.7 30.7 Building Orange 274.7 124.2 Building Green 264.2 112.8 Building Yellow 418.3 198.2 Baseline for retail buildings 262.9 119.3

Other non-residential buildings Building Pink 178.8 69.4 Building Purple 195.0 39.4 Building Brown 587.6 131.5 Building Hazel 151.2 74.5 Baseline for portfolio 300.0 79.5

CCM Phase I Pilot

Key outcomes

Developing consensus-based definitions

What definition for building area has been adopted by SBCI for subsequent phases of the CCM?

Answer: Building area is measured in meters squared (m2) of Gross Floor Area (GFA) of a building. The GFA is to be measured from the inside face of exterior perimeter wall, also including areas of sloping surfaces such as staircases, galleries, raked auditoria, and tiered terraces, but excluding open floors and exterior covered ways and balconies.

CCM Phase I Pilot

Key outcomes

Categories of building types

How are building types defined in the CCM? Is this consistent internationally?

UNEP-SBCI has decided to adopt the UNFCCC list of building types for Phase II. RESIDENTIAL: Single-family residential, Multi-family residential Other residential NON-RESIDENTIAL: Office, Hotel, Warehouse & storage, Mercantile & service, Food service, Entertainment, Other commercial, Education, Public assembly, Health care, Public order and safety, Institutional lodging, Other institutional, Mixed-use building units, Other non-residential

CCM Phase I Pilot

Key outcomesOccupancy

How should I estimate the occupancy of a building?

Answer: At this stage, UNEP-SBCI does not provide a single definition for estimating occupancy. The review process has identified several rules-of-thumb that may be used to determine occupancy, including the numbers of persons sleeping within the defined area (for residential buildings) and the full-time equivalent (FTE) concept (for non-residential buildings).

CCM Phase I Pilot

Key outcomesNormalizing energy performance using climate data

kWh / m2 / year kgCO2e / m2/ year kWh / occupant / year kg CO2e / occupant / year kWh / m2 / year / DD kWh / occupant/ year / DD

CCM Phase I Pilot

Preview of changes: technical additions

Next steps: CCM Phase II

Expanded list of residential and non-residential building types based on UNFCCC’s building categorizations.

Normalize building performance by degree day information.

Use custom emission factors in addition to the default IPCC and IEA emission factors as defaults.

Input electricity consumption data by month through the top-down and bottom-up approaches.

Input information on multiple fuels for the same building.

Record the year of last building retrofit.

Record amount of purchased green power or amount of renewable energy generated on-site and returned to the grid.

Preview of changes: improvement in functionality

Next steps: CCM Phase II

Implementation of CCM through an Open-access web-based tool with the ability to:

Track the performance of the same building sets over time.

Create inventories for building sets stretching across different cities/regions, including inventories at the national level.

Compare regions of similar climates but different emission factors.

Reports could still be created in standardised format such as Excel.

Preview of changes: Phase II Pilot testing

Next steps: CCM Phase II

Pilot with 20-40 cities or organisations with large portfolio of buildings

Encompass locations in different climate zones and in both developing and developed countries

Timeline of activities:

Refine scope and identify participants (Feb - May 2011)

Technical additions and Pilot (May - Oct 2011)

Report-writing. CCM 2012 version for measurement and reporting related to national and international carbon credit initiatives (Oct 2011- May 2012)

Source: World Green Building Council

CO2e

1. Benchmarking2. Baselines3. Monetization

Common metrics

Source: World Green Building Council

Benchmarking: labeling & ratings

Stakeholders = Designers, Owners, Tenants

Baselines: targets & regulation

Stakeholders= Policy Makers, Shareholders

Monetization: rebates & incentives

Stakeholders= Investors, Financiers, Real-estate

Professionals

Stakeholders Galvanize Around Tools

Common metrics

Next Steps The Common Carbon Metric offers a common and

widely agreed corner stone for international policy making on climate mitigation in the building sector.

WGBC, SBA & UNEP working through harmonisation issues.

Phase II Pilot is being planned.

Many thanks for

your attention!

www.unep.org/sbci