Kiilto’s environmental webinar series: Carbon footprints of products and buildings
Reducing the carbon footprint and emissions of operations has become a key theme, both in the construction industry and across all sectors. As environmental awareness grows and regulations tighten, it is increasingly important for companies to understand and manage the environmental impacts of their operations.
Why should companies calculate their carbon footprint and emissions?
While emission and carbon footprint calculations can seem laborious at first, it is useful for companies to understand the impact of their own activities, from individual projects to the big picture. Genuine responsibility work can only be effectively managed and monitored if the company’s emission goals are based on concrete calculations.
The Building Act 2025 in Finland obliges construction industry operators to calculate emissions and sets limit values for a building’s carbon footprint. On the other hand, understanding the carbon footprint and emissions will help companies to meet reporting obligations, such as the CSRD. Emission calculations also improve competitiveness, as customers increasingly demand environmental labels and product declarations (EPDs) backed up by verified carbon footprint calculations.
What is the carbon footprint of a building?
The starting point for carbon footprint and emission calculations is identifying the impacts the company’s operations have. The builder needs to know what contributes to the carbon footprint of a building. The most significant emission point is the use phase, which accounts for more than 50% of a building’s overall emissions. Use-phase emissions can be reduced through geothermal heat, heat recovery, local energy grids and efficient cooling systems, for example. In addition, buildings should also aim for energy class A.
The second most important source of emissions is materials, which account for 37% of overall emissions and contribute, in particular, to the builder’s Scope 3 emissions. The builder can reduce these emissions by using low-carbon materials and recycled materials.
Construction accounts for 7% of a building’s overall emissions. In construction, it is important to invest in sorting, recycling, renewable energy, and efficient and low-emission machinery. Finally, repair, demolition and conversion account for about 3% of a building’s overall emissions.
Materials are key in carbon footprint calculation
The number of different materials in construction is constantly increasing. One of the challenges in the industry is how to verify all the materials and parts of which the product is made. For materials, emission data alone is not enough: information on end-of-life recycling, environmental footprint, quality and safety is equally important.
EPDs (Environmental Product Declarations) for materials help customers with their Scope 3 calculations. If a material supplier minimises its product’s carbon footprint, this has an impact on the value-chain emissions for customers. Accurate environmental labelling of products helps customers to choose materials for their processes in a more environmentally conscious way. In addition to the carbon footprint, the EPD contains a wide range of information on different impacts such as land use and ozone depletion. Comprehensive documentation also helps material suppliers to learn about the environmental impact of their products. Many companies have already started to talk about their environmental footprint instead of their carbon footprint, taking into account both carbon emissions and biodiversity.
Analysing your process is a good place to start
To get started with emission calculations, take a look at the process used in your company: What do you purchase, what do you manufacture, and what does your process look like? You can start calculating your carbon footprint and emissions by using common databases, which help you to get an overview. This allows the identification of the largest and most relevant emission sources. By influencing these, you can make significant improvements to the carbon footprint of your organisation’s own operations.