#21: Jake Attwood-Harris (Hawkins\Brown) - Whole Life Carbon, Zero Carbon Architecture and Retrofitting for Sustainability

Jake is Sustainable Design Advisor at Hawkins\Brown where he led the development of the free open-source Hawkins Brown Emissions Reduction Tool, also referred to as H\B:ERT, which is a whole life carbon calculation tool. Jake works across all project stages; developing and reviewing key sustainability strategies and targets. His work is at the boundary between architecture and engineering; working with passive design techniques to create comfort in buildings before using modern technology where it counts.

In the episode Jake and I discuss:

• The practicalities of achieving net zero carbon by 2050
• Taking an evidence based approach to designing zero carbon buildings
• The challenges of retrofitting existing buildings for energy efficiency, and
• Why it is essential that Architects are trained and educated in sustainable design principles.

Heads up on some terminology we use:

Whole Life Carbon: an approach to designing buildings that takes into account emissions from the building's entire life, including construction and operation. So, it's the most accurate way of assessing actually how many emissions are associated with a building.

We also talk about Hawkins Browns' Revit Plugin for assessing carbon emissions. If you don't know, Revit is basically a 3d modelling software used by architects and engineers, which has a database built in so you can store data in the model. 

Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 emissions: Scope 1 relates to emissions directly from burning fossil fuels. Scope 2 relates to indirect emissions from energy use. And Scope 3 relates to embodied emissions, in this case from building materials.

Learn more about Hawkins/Brown:
https://www.hawkinsbrown.com/

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