Determination of a dynamic top-down greenhouse gas budget for buildings in Germany

The building sector is responsible for 21% of global greenhouse gas emissions but has so far shown limited progress towards the significant reduction in emissions and related temperature targets set by the Paris Agreement. While tools such as life cycle assessment are available to determine building emissions, in Germany, no connection has yet been made between the results of these assessments and global temperature targets. To address this gap, greenhouse gas emission budgets for the construction, renovation, demolition, and operation of buildings are needed. Based on a literature review, various budget distribution approaches are explored. Germany is used as a case study, applying a top-down approach to downscale the globally available greenhouse gas budget across multiple levels to the building level. Projections for the energy mix and trends in material emissions are considered to determine a dynamic budget for the years 2025 to the politically set year of climate neutrality in 2045. The results show that buildings built in 2025 have an operational greenhouse gas emission budget of 6.86 kg CO2e/(m2*a) and an embodied greenhouse gas emission budget of 6.41 kg CO2e/(m2*a). By 2045, these budgets will be reduced to 1.05 and 0.79 kg CO2e/(m2*a), respectively. The application of the budgets developed here can help planners and decision-makers in the building sector to contribute to national and global greenhouse gas neutrality.     «

The building sector is responsible for 21% of global greenhouse gas emissions but has so far shown limited progress towards the significant reduction in emissions and related temperature targets set by the Paris Agreement. While tools such as life cycle assessment are available to determine building emissions, in Germany, no connection has yet been made between the results of these assessments and global temperature targets. To address this gap, greenhouse gas emission budgets for the constructi...     »