The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditoning Engineers and the International Code Council released a draft for public review of their proposed joint standard for evaluating and documenting greenhouse gas emissions across a building’s life cycle, according to a Feb. 2 news release.
The proposed standard, ASHRAE/ICC Standard 240P, Quantification of Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Buildings, aims to help building industry stakeholders, governments, investors and financiers implement a common platform for measuring, reporting and acting upon the GHG emissions of buildings, the release said.
The standard covers new and existing commercial and residential buildings, groups of buildings or portions of buildings, embodied carbon and GHG emissions of building materials and systems, the calculation of GHG and carbon emissions associated with on-site and off-site energy and carbon flows, and a methodology for calculating net-zero GHG and carbon emissions in building operations.
"Standard 240P will play a pivotal role in addressing embodied carbon and significantly impacting the built environment's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, particularly within mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) systems,” ASHRAE President Ginger Scoggins said in the release.
When ASHRAE and ICC first announced their collaboration on Standard 240P in August 2022, ASHRAE’s then-president, Farooq Mehboob, pointed to a growing global demand for consistent building decarbonization guidance that “acknowledges the impact of carbon emissions” from construction to demolition while also accounting for changes in building operation and performance over time.
The comment period for the standard is open until March 18.
