WHY INDICATE
INDICATE is meeting one of the most fundamental challenges to decarbonise buildings – the lack of data to support policymaking and strategic business decision-making.
The building and construction sector accounts for approximately 40% of global carbon emissions. This needs to change! INDICATE pushes for policy and industry to tackle both operational and embodied carbon -‘Whole Life Carbon’ (WLC) – since it is crucial to reduce the climate impact of new construction and renovation.
WHAT IS INDICATE
INDICATE is an accelerator offering a project framework and co-funding to support efforts to generate much-needed building-level WLC data in Europe. This data must be generated now if industry and policy action on decarbonising buildings are to be brought in line with the 1,5 °C target from the 2015 Paris COP21 agreement.
National partnerships will be forged between industry, academia, and national government. This co-creation approach promises to ensure the stakeholders will act on the data and the outcomes to accelerate policy and industry change.
The generated data will support:
The demand for product level LCA
The push towards setting WLC benchmarks
Setting national regulations
Preparations for EU EPBD negotiations.
INDICATE offers a combination of financial support and technical advice on both ‘Life Cycle Analysis’ (LCA) data and policy advocacy.
The financial support is targeted at generating the data foundation, whilst INDICATE’s cocreation approach and advocacy support are designed to ensure the all-important buy in of industry and policy makers to take and use the data to accelerate progress towards a fully decarbonised building stock.
Financial support up to €250.000 and technical advice
With grants up to €250.000, INDICATE supports the collection of systemized and improved data of new or existing building LCA results. It directly enables generation of insights into the state of the respective national building stock and carbon reduction potential of different national strategies. To ensure buy-in from supported consortiums there is a requirement of public co-funding.
PILOT COUNTRIES
INDICATE is currently supporting 3 selected EU countries to increase the quality, quantity, and application of building-level LCA data, to manage and minimize the WLC footprint of buildings.
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Our current situation:
Although there are several initiatives such as the IETcc CSIC OpenDAP, ITEC BEDEC, Cype Environmental databases and others, in Spain there is no national harmonized LCA method or national database of construction products with associated environmental data. The existing data infrastructure that comprises different software and data sources (e.g., IteC, OneClickLCA, Cype, etc) is a main barrier to push for WLC policy action. As comparability, data accessibility and transparency is limited in the existing building LCA data industry, policymakers do not have the foundation to take action
INDICATE will help us with:
The national INDICATE project will help increase engagement, raise awareness, and support the creation of a national LCA data infrastructure for buildigns, including baselines and benchmarks to accelerate the WLC assessment implementation in practice. As part of the project national datasets accessible and functional to different stakeholders and regions in Spain will be developed. 50 archetypes of building LCAs will be conducted. They are to be based on 10 real cases (5 building types; for each north/south construction type) and modelled into two alternative structural configurations and five different envelope types.
Our consortium partners:
University of Seville, The green Building Council España and the Government of Spain (as observers).
For more information on the Spanish INDICATE project, please contact Antonio García Martínez (University of Seville) by e-mail: agarcia6@us.es
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Our current situation:
In Ireland, there has been a rapid increase in the private sector in quantifying Whole Life Carbon (WLC) over the past two years. However, without a national methodology or centralised national database, WLC measurements are not currently comparable. Some are using different methodologies, different time frames, measuring a different scope, and are not aligned with the European wide Level(s) framework. Furthermore, it is not known whether the generic data used is actually representative for Ireland. Using a nationally defined methodology fully aligned with Level(s) and an agreed national database means we can align with Europe, affording greater comparability and learnings.
INDICATE will help us with:
The national INDICATE project will enable an acceleration in integration of Whole Life Carbon (WLC) into regulation, public procurement, and industry. It will support the creation of a final LCA-assessment methodology approach, data infrastructure and agreed methodology. As part of the project 30-50 validated LCAs will be conducted and the development of an open access online platform will ensure the data is easy to interrogate, analyse and use by industry, policy makers and researchers.
Our consortium partners:
The project will be delivered through Construct Innovate, Ireland's national research centre for construction technology and innovation with core personnel from University of Galway, Irish Green Building Council and University College Dublin in the project delivery team, supported by Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland.
For more information on the Irish INDICATE project, please contact Stephen Barrett (Irish Green Building Council) by e-mail: stephen@igbc.ie
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Our current situation:
The lack of knowledge on consumers, low amount of LCA data available, low market push, low capacity and partial reluctancy of governmental entities characterize the present situation regarding WLC/LCA of buildings in the country. The Czech Republic does not have a decarbonization strategy in place for the building sector and construction regulation responsibilities are shared among multiple ministries whose coordination could be improved. Operators of national subsidy schemes for building renovations are open to support monitoring of carbon footprint, and banking and real estate sectors are willing to implement EU Taxonomy and EPBD. However, this will probably call for WLC calculations and disclose that there is a lack of awareness about WLC among policy makers accompanied by low support from the government.
INDICATE will help us with:
The national INDICATE project will support the analysis of the existing national building LCA case studies while also contributing to the creation of 50 new WLC building case studies. Based on these case studies, the project will help define benchmarks for WLC of buildings for the Czech Republic building stock. As part of the project case studies and results will be presented at live events with interested parties and during bilateral meetings with policy makers and project results will be communicated via a communication campaign on social media.
Our consortium partners:
University Centre for Energy Efficient Buildings of Czech Technical University in Prague, The Czech Green Building Council, Chance for Buildings with the support of the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic.
For more information on the Czech INDICATE project, please contact Licia Felicioni (Czech Technical University in Prague) by e-mail: licia.felicioni@cvut.cz
WHO IS BEHIND INDICATE
The accelerator is a collaboration of Smith Innovation as operator, and BPIE, KU Leuven and WorldGBC delivering political and technical support, and Laudes Foundation as funding partner.
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Assist philanthropic foundations, local governments as well as companies and organizations in the building industry to take a leading role in the transition towards a sustainable future. Therefore, Smith is an interdisciplinary team rooted in a mix of disciplines, including economics, engineering, natural and social science. We believe that a structured, yet open-ended approach to systemic challenges is the key to success regardless of whether we facilitate firms to develop new services or provide recommendations for governmental institutions and philanthropic foundations.
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The World Green Building Council (WorldGBC) is the largest and most influential localregional- global action network, leading the transformation to sustainable and decarbonised built environments for everyone, everywhere.
Together, with 75+ Green Building Councils and industry partners from all around the world, we are driving systemic changes to:
Address whole life carbon emissions of existing and new buildings
Enable resilient, healthy, equitable and inclusive places
Secure regenerative, resource efficient and waste-free infrastructure
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The research group Architectural Engineering at KU Leuven tackle innovation in the design of buildings by approaching architecture from an engineering point of view. The group conducts cutting-edge research on technical aspects of architecture, considering structure, materials, services, and comfort requirements in a multidisciplinary setting in order to quantify, assess, and improve the quality, cost, and sustainability of the built environment.
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BPIE (Buildings Performance Institute Europe) is a leading independent centre of expertise on energy performance of buildings, providing data-driven and actionable policy analysis, advice, and implementation support to decision-makers in the public, private, and non-profit sectors. Founded in 2010, BPIE combines expertise on energy efficiency, renewable energy technologies, and health and indoor environment with a deep understanding of EU policies and processes. A not-for-profit think-tank based in Brussels and Berlin, our mission is to make an affordable, climate-neutral built environment a reality in Europe and globally.
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Laudes Foundation is a philanthropic foundation founded in 2020 and working in the intersection of research, policy, and pre-commercial industry practice. Laudes is responding to the dual crises of inequality and climate change by supporting systemic change within the built environment, fashion industry and new economic thinking.
ACT NOW!
Everyone can contribute to improving the availability of data!
Suppliers and manufacturers can ensure they provide Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) for all their products, and developers and designers can request EPDs for all products and ensure WLC assessments are performed and published for all their projects. The public sector and political leaders can support by committing to enact WLC policy and engaging with stakeholders to find the best data and start to develop baselines.
The team behind the initiative is exploring opportunities to increase the country coverage in a second funding phase.
Find out more
Please reach out to us if you want to learn more about how to support the initiative, are interested in the outcomes, or interested in applying for the initiative as a phase 2 country consortia.
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