Carbon Accounting: a step ahead

Here at Light House, we’ve spent years developing energy efficient, small footprint, solar passive homes. Many of our homes run almost entirely off their solar systems, and hardly touch the national grid. But this isn’t enough for us. 

The next challenge for building sustainability is looking at the Whole Life Carbon impacts of our houses. This means taking into account absolutely everything that goes into a building, and where everything ends up. We do this through a Life Cycle Assessment which includes the impacts of the energy taken from the grid, and the materials used, the construction equipment, even the bathtubs are included!

This lets us look at the real environmental impact of our homes, at a scale that matters. We  can make better material choices, help inform design decisions, and report the total carbon footprint of our homes.

We don’t like offsetting carbon emissions, even though it is the norm in Australia. This lets houses hide any lazy design decisions (eg. oversized rooms and walls of glass) behind big solar panels and claim that they are “Carbon Neutral”. Recent academic literature from overseas has recommended that offsets should not be considered in the total account for a building, and we are happy to listen.

Alasdair has just finished a Whole Life Carbon Account for our Wonga Street Project, which goes into the scientific nitty gritty and full breakdown of how it's been put together.

If you are interested in the next challenge for sustainability in buildings, we recommend checking out the report or going to our new Carbon Accounting webpage.

Report: Wonga Street: Whole Life Carbon Account

Webpage: Carbon Accounting