Cohesion are pleased to announce that they now offer Whole Life Carbon Assessment as a service.

Whole Life Carbon Assessment (or WLCA) is the calculation of ALL carbon impacts across the whole life of a built asset, including the calculation of ’embodied carbon’ emissions associated with producing, procuring and installing materials and components making up the structure. WLCA also considers lifetime emissions resulting from maintenance, repair, replacement and demolition of the asset.

The construction industry has so far mainly addressed operational energy use, when assessing the carbon impact of the built environment, mostly by energy and emissions targets introduced as part of building regulations (part L) and planning requirements.

To acquire an overall understanding of a built project’s total carbon impact, it is necessary to assess both the anticipated operational and embodied emissions over the whole life of the asset. Considering operational as well as embodied carbon emissions together over a project’s expected life cycle constitutes the whole life approach.

Cohesion adopt a whole life carbon approach to identify the overall best combined opportunities for reducing lifetime emissions, helping to avoid any unintended consequences of focusing on operational emissions alone. Calculating and reporting carbon impact in accordance with the RICS Professional Standards and guidance for Whole Life Carbon Assessment for the Built Environment, ensures that a standardised approach and methodology is adopted, providing coherent and comparable results, suitable for benchmarking the whole life carbon performance of built assets.

Please contact Richard Bodsworth for further information on Whole Life Carbon Assessment and how Cohesion can assist you in assessing and reporting the carbon impacts of your buildings and developments.