ConstructionLCA

“There are three broad channels through which climate change can affect financial stability:

– First, physical risks: the impacts today on insurance liabilities and the value of financial assets that arise from climate- and weather-related events, such as floods and storms that damage property or disrupt trade;

– Second, liability risks: the impacts that could arise tomorrow if parties who have suffered loss or damage from the effects of climate change seek compensation from those they hold responsible.  Such claims could come decades in the future, but have the potential to hit carbon extractors and emitters – and, if they have liability cover, their insurers – the hardest;

– Finally, transition risks: the financial risks which could result from the process of adjustment towards a lower-carbon economy.  Changes in policy, technology and physical risks could prompt a reassessment of the value of a large range of assets as costs and opportunities become apparent.

The speed at which such re-pricing occurs is uncertain and could be decisive for financial stability.  There have already been a few high profile examples of jump-to-distress pricing because of shifts in environmental policy or performance.

Risks to financial stability will be minimised if the transition begins early and follows a predictable path, thereby helping the market anticipate the transition to a 2 degree world.”

Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England in a speech to Lloyds of London, September 2015.

“Humanity is called to recognize the need for changes of lifestyle, production and consumption, in order to combat this warming or at least the human causes which produce or aggravate it.  … Many of those who possess more resources and economic or political power seem mostly to be concerned with masking the problems or concealing their symptoms, simply making efforts to reduce some of the negative impacts of climate change. However, many of these symptoms indicate that such effects will continue to worsen if we continue with current models of production and consumption. There is an urgent need to develop policies so that, in the next few years, the emission of carbon dioxide and other highly polluting gases can be drastically reduced, for example, substituting for fossil fuels and developing sources of renewable energy. ”

Pope Francis, Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’, May 2015

“There can be no attack on poverty without an assault on climate change.

So we commit to make progress in a way that is sustainable and protects our one and only planet for the long term and treasures and conserves our natural resources for future generations.

This is the only way to eliminate extreme poverty forever and prevent all our progress being undone by environmental degradation or dangerous climate change.”

David Cameron, to the UN Sustainable Development Goals Summit, September 2015

You may also be interested in the UKGBC Embodied Carbon conference which has been organised for 1^st October 2015, to follow up on last year’s Embodied Carbon Week.

http://www.ukgbc.org/event/embodied-carbon-%E2%80%93-action-and-implementation

I will be talking in the morning on the “current state of play”.

PE INTERNATIONAL has rebranded as thinkstep and launched our new platform, thinkstep.one. BuildingGreen explain what’s behind the move and what it will mean for our clients. http://bit.ly/1EBwLcW

I’ll be at Ecobuild on Wednesday and if you’ve got questions about EPD, Embodied Impacts or how LCA could help your business, let me know by using the form below and I’ll be in contact to try and set up a meeting.

I just found this excellent visualisation by Amie Shuttleworth of Sir Robert MacAlpine on Shamir Ghumra’s old blog, showing how EPD relate to everything else constructionwise, based on the outcome of a stakeholder discussion held while she was completing her MSt at Cambridge.

As they say, sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words!

UL Environment and BRE have just announced a Memorandum of Understanding which will jointly recognize each other’s Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) to EN 15804.  Read the full press release here.

Whereas the Eco Platform allows member EPD programmes to list their EPD in a common area (often the easiest way to find EPD from programmes with unhelpful websites), mutual recognition means that EPD can be rebadged with the familiar appearance of the other EPD programme, often providing specific data for that national market.

UL Environment have had mutual recognition for EPD with the German IBU EPD programme since 2014, and IBU already have MoU with EPD Norge, EPD Danmark and the new Turkish EPD programme to recognise each others EPD and have listed a number of International EPD from the Swedish scheme. The International EPD scheme has itself recently launched an alliance with the new Australasian EPD scheme which will be based on International EPD, and a similar relationship exists with the Czech and Turkish EPD schemes.

So the question is, whether manufacturers with EPD from the German, Norwegian, Danish, Turkish, Czech, Australasian and International EPD programmes will be able to use the mutual recognition agreements with IBU, and then with UL Environment, and then with BRE to get mutual recognition within the BRE EN 15804 Verified EPD programme?  And will it work the other way round?

To see some examples of EPD which have taken advantage of mutual recognition, look at the IBU page.

A great piece by Jacqui Glass for UKGBC on why responsible sourcing matters in construction.