This autumn, the new "Climate Act" is expected to be passed, coming into force in 2025. The major news is the new requirements for greenhouse gas emissions. "The industry must adapt by 2023 to be compliant in time," says Tom Nordin, CEO of Nordic BIM Group Sweden & Anavitor LCA.
From January 1, 2022, it became mandatory to report climate impact and to prepare a climate declaration for certain types of buildings. Many are unaware of the climate declaration requirement and thus are falling behind in this work.
Now, the requirements are becoming stricter, and more types of projects are included. A new legislative proposal is expected to be up for consultation in spring 2023, with the updated climate law anticipated to be passed this autumn. This means that all new construction projects will have a set of threshold values they must adhere to.
"The calculation work must start early, and the industry no longer has time to waste. Threshold values will apply already in 2025 if the proposal passes. Those who do not fully control the building's climate impact risk incurring significant costs to make changes late in the process. In the worst case, projects may need to go back to the drawing board," says Tom.
"We aim to be industry leaders in the green shift. Being able to offer climate calculations is one way for us to enhance our environmental offerings to our clients."
- Thomas Taliaferro, Business Developer in Environment, Veidekke Infrastructure Sweden.
Digitalization of Life Cycle Analysis (LCA)
Today, we are still early in this effort, and there are some knowledge gaps to fill. The use of actual values through Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) is promoted. Current methods with conservative generic values are challenged by offering so-called discounts for the use of actual EPD data. Using actual data allows for a 25% deduction of the material's impact. Going forward, it is likely that actual data will be used more extensively, and discounts may be removed.
LCA calculations and the use of various resource databases and complex calculations require extensive information gathering and can become a costly process. Nordic BIM Group's tool, Anavitor LCA, leverages all these data and is integrated with all necessary databases and the BIM model, which is designed to be the basis for the calculation, allowing users to perform simpler or complete calculations without incurring significant project costs.
"We try to make it as simple as possible to perform these calculations, and it shouldn't only be experts who can do this. For the industry to succeed, it needs to be easier and thus more cost-effective where systems support open formats like IFC or can use data from companies' own systems."
Climate Control in the Driver's Seat
Today's requirements for climate declarations do not apply to the operation of infrastructure. However, Veidekke Infrastructure Sweden has chosen to make LCA calculations using Anavitor LCA. Thus, they can always present an alternative bid that includes climate impact at tenders. Thomas Taliaferro, Business Developer, explains that they chose Anavitor LCA because the tool is compatible with the company's system for economic calculations. All data about materials and products can be easily entered into the LCA calculation.
"Highlighting the projects' climate footprint is a way to strengthen our offerings to customers. Considering that the construction industry accounts for a fifth of the country's greenhouse gas emissions, we also have a significant responsibility to do what we can to make Sweden climate-neutral," concludes Thomas.
*First published 2023-08-16