ADAPTIVE SUSTAINABILITY

Addressing sustainability requires wholistic cradle-to-grave approach that takes into account all the stages of a building's life span

BUILD NOTHING UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY

The best way to reduce the embodied carbon of healthcare industry is to critically appraise the existing building stock and determine whether retention and adaption is an opportunity. Building Greenfield, even if Net Zero, comes with more CO2 emissions compared to refurbishing existing buildings.

According to the Paris Agreement, in order to avoid an irreversible and catastrophic climate change trajectory, average global temperatures must not rise more than 2°C. Since emissions accumulate in the atmosphere and there is limited time remaining before the arrival of this tipping point, emissions released now are more critical than emissions released later.

The majority of a building’s total embodied carbon is released upfront in the product stage at the beginning of a building’s life. Unlike with operational carbon, there is no chance to decrease embodied carbon with updates in efficiency after the building is

constructed.

BENEFITS OF REFURBISHING A TYPICAL 300-BED HOSPITAL

Building 'net zero' can be deceptive as it often overlooks embodied carbon, neglecting the emissions associated with the production, transportation, and construction of materials, thereby providing an incomplete assessment of a structure's true environmental impact. Using the benchmarks published by Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) we have calculated cradle-to-grave Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) quantifying environmental impact, as well as the cost impact for a typical 300 beds 100,000 square meters hospital through two scenarios: building a new ‘Net Zero’ hospital versus retrofitting an existing hospital. Both scenarios are based on ISOs 14040 and 14044 standardized 60-year lifespan.

Following benchmark-based comparison does not represent actual values that might differ. Purpose of this comparison is to provide illustrative magnitude of the potential carbon emissions and cost savings of the retrofitting scenario.