See all forum discussions about SD Leaders

Subscribe to new posts about SD Leaders Post a new question aboutSD Leaders

Forum discussion

SBTI Experience/

Kjell Anderson

Director of Sustainable Design

LMN Architects

LEEDuser Basic Member

4 thumbs up

January 12, 2024

Hi all -

I have heard a good deal about SBTI in the last while and am wondering about this group’s firms’ engagement with them. We reported one year through CDP, and it was not very useful. It focused entirely on Scope 1 and 2 emissions, which are over 1000x times less than our semi-controllable Scope 3 (buildings’ embodied carbon and operational carbon emissions form the bulk of our Scope 3). I love that SBTI requires an interim target (5-10 years out), not just a distant 2050 hand wave/shrug.

Who is using SBTI and what is your experience? Is their program relevant to architecture firms? Do they have any more nuance when it comes to Scope 3 v Scopes 1/2?

Their embodied carbon goal setting in absolute terms through 2050 seem relevant and already covered by BuildingGreen. https://sciencebasedtargets.org/resources/files/DRAFT_SBTi_Embodied-carbon-pathway-development-description.pdf

Thanks!

Kjell

Post a reply

Yasemin Kologlu

Design Director

SOM

LEEDuser Basic Member

0 thumbs up

Fri, 01/12/2024 - 11:10

Hi Kjell, I have become some kind of an expert on SBTI for AEC and their evolving guidelines. Happy to answer your questions. Let’s connect. What’s your email please? Best Yasemin (((

James Kitchin

Director of Performance & Provenance

MASS Design Group

LEEDuser Basic Member

0 thumbs up

Fri, 01/12/2024 - 12:09

Hi Kjell, This isn't from SBTI so might not be what you're after. The IStructE developed Structural Carbon Rating Scheme (SCORS) based on science based targets. We use these as one of several targets. https://www.istructe.org/journal/volumes/volume-98-(2020)/issue-10/setting-carbon-targets-an-introduction-to-scors/ I've used the process in Figure 3 to do other simple science based targets too. I (and I am sure others) would be keen to learn from your conversation with Yasmin too if you're able to report back. Thanks James

Eric Corey Freed

Principal, Director of Sustainability

CannonDesign

LEEDuser Expert

0 thumbs up

Fri, 01/12/2024 - 23:52

This guidance doc: https://sciencebasedtargets.org/resources/files/DRAFT_SBTI_Buildings_Guidance.pdf is troubling (we only discussed it briefly at the LFRT retreat in August).

All of their input seems to have come from Contractors and Real Estate and not Architects and Designers. They seemingly want to dump the responsibly of embodied carbon onto Architects.

We don't have control over this (as much as the Owner). Really, we (the buildings we design) are the Owner's Scope 3 emissions.

@Yasemin I'm interested in your take on this.

-e

Kimberly Reddin

Director of Sustainability

Flad

LEEDuser Premium Member

0 thumbs up

Thu, 02/22/2024 - 14:38

Hi all, We have a couple of clients who have encouraged us to commit to setting science-based targets and we would like to do it. The challenge I've been running into is I am struggling to figure out how -- the guidance doesn't feel clear to me. This language is on page 36 of the Building Sector guidance Eric linked above: "For architects and engineering firms as well as developers, new buildings are treated as a ‘product’ and the scope 1 and 2 emissions (module B6; energy use in a building’s life cycle) of future building occupiers should be included in the user’s scope 3 reporting the year in which the building is sold." Then on page 99 it says AEC companies should use the SBTi cross-sector guidance for target setting, and adds the bullet on page 100, "Whilst these companies must allocate in-use operational emissions from the use of building projects that have been constructed in their use of sold products, there is no consensus on the treatment of embodied emissions in their scope 3 using the GHG Protocol." So as I read it, the year we finish constructing a building, its lifetime Scope 1 and 2 is our Scope 3 "Use of Sold Products." We've gone to the GHG Protocol for Use of Sold Products (Category 11) guidance and tried to run calcs on our 2022 portfolio of projects completed that year to get a ROM idea of that category of our Scope 3. We have so many questions, but the biggest issues of concern are that 1) we really don't track refrigerant data for our buildings yet to be able to calc leakage, and 2) we don't understand how to account for the grid emissions reductions that will surely get implemented across the 60 year lifespan of our project's calculated service life. Yasemin, Kjell, or anyone else -- does anyone have a solid grasp on how to calculate AEC Scope 3 Use of Sold Products to be able to set a good target? I would be so grateful for anyone's educated guidance on this. My email is kreddin@flad.com if any kind soul wants to reach out directly.

Ramana Koti

Sustainable Design Leader

HKS, Inc.

LEEDuser Basic Member

11 thumbs up

Thu, 02/22/2024 - 15:26

I recently saw a headline that said 15 companies were chosen for pilot testing; hopefully the draft guidance published so far will become final guidance after the testing phase, sometime in 2024? Ramana Koti , LEED Fellow, BEMP, GGP Sustainable Design Leader, Commercial/Mixed Use Vice President [HKS, Inc] 3280 Peachtree Road NE, #900, Atlanta, GA 30305 +1 404 442 5428 | www.hksinc.com Pronouns: he/him/his From: K

Kjell Anderson

Director of Sustainable Design

LMN Architects

LEEDuser Basic Member

4 thumbs up

Thu, 02/22/2024 - 18:24

The first, easier but unsatisfying, step is to begin tracking (‘What gets measured gets managed’). Just as we track energy use reductions against the 2030 Challenge*, we can also track embodied carbon emissions against a baseline. I think the best one available now is the SBTI embodied carbon reduction goals (“A 1.5°C PATHWAY FOR THE GLOBAL BUILDINGS SECTOR’S EMBODIED EMISSIONS” May 2023, page 21) and to track against that we’re using struct, envelope, interiors, and factors for MEP. For some projects we use Pathfinder for site, and we are looking at carbon conscience as well. Is it perfect? No. The 2030 Challenge baselines are a mess, our progress is not calculated evenly, but nonetheless it set a precedent that firms are tracking, doing something about, and code agencies have aligned with. Embodied carbon baselines are farther behind, but we need to begin tracking projects against something; if a better baseline comes out we can likely just change the math and track against that. I completely agree that our industry (AEC) should include our buildings’ carbon pollution within our Scope 3. Scope 3 is also a mess, with no boundaries. Someone should clean it up. But nonetheless we should be tracking it. For 2020, LMN calculated that the Operational emissions of our buildings designed that year will emit 360,000 MT of carbon pollution over 30 years (85 kgCO2e/sf, using grid regions, fuel mix, and Cambium projections), have emitted 168,000 MT of carbon pollution from embodied carbon (40 kgCO2e/sf of structure, env, and some interiors), while our office footprint (including business travel, commutes, energy use, paper, printing) is around 600 MT. Refrigerant is calculated for LEED, but we haven’t yet included it in our totals, similar to you. Why did we run 30 years of operational emissions? While it leads to some inconsistencies, if we haven’t solved the climate destabilization problem of electricity generation within 30 years we are F’ed, so why project beyond then? To your second question, I’d use the statewide or regional Cambium emissions for operational. You can download them from the website. The categories in the downloaded excel file are confusingly similar names, but we use the statewide excel file, and within it we use the column heading “aer_load_CO2e” for annual kgCO2e accounting. EPIC by EHDD has the c.scale engine that has great methods and FAQ: https://docs.cscale.io/readme/operational-carbon. -Kjell *Note that the 2030 Challenge is about ‘fossil fuel energy use reduction’ and not just about energy use reduction. AIA interpreted the 2030 Challenge to mean EUI. It’s really about eliminating fossil fuels on site and on the electricity grid, that’s really what we should be tracking. So technically most of our projects meet the 2030 Challenge since they are fossil fuel free on site and are in a grid region with mostly renewables or have a VPPA for 100% renewable energy (which aligns with the White House definition of Zero Emissions). But we don’t claim this because most people think the 2030 Challenge is about EUI. Our 2022 reporting was a 72% average reduction per AIA 2030 reporting. Kjell Anderson AIA, FAIA, LEED Fellow Principal, Director of Sustainable Design LMN Architects lmnarchitects.com M 206 812 6546 O 206 682 3460 S Linkedin | X | Instagram From: Kimberly Reddin

Yasemin Kologlu

Design Director

SOM

LEEDuser Basic Member

0 thumbs up

Thu, 02/22/2024 - 20:02

Hi Kimberly, they are working on a new sector specific guideline that will be adopted in 2024. So you might want to wait for that if you have time to wait. If you would like to submit prior, you have a few options and I will reach out to you directly. best Yasemin On Thu, Feb 22, 2024 at 9:47 AM Kimberly Reddin wrote:

Kimberly Reddin

Director of Sustainability

Flad

LEEDuser Premium Member

0 thumbs up

Fri, 03/01/2024 - 14:43

Sorry this took a minute to respond -- thank you so much, Yasemin and Kjell! This is really helpful. Kjell, appreciate you sharing your numbers -- ours are the same order of magnitude, so it gives me some comfort that we probably haven't made a drastic math error in our preliminary calcs. As we've calculated it at the moment (flawed as I'm sure it still is), our Scope 3 Use of Sold Products for 2022 would be at least 150x our firm's total of Scope 1, 2, and Scope 3 Business Travel, Employee Commuting, Waste, Leased Assets. I agree with your comments about the AIA 2030 Commitment, too. We started trying to educate staff about the importance of tracking fuel sources last year, I've been trying to get folks to report fuel source energy use now instead of simply inputting an EUI number. I've also been trying to find time to catch up on the newer DDX approach to operational carbon. I have hopes that maybe in the future we won't have to run all of these side spreadsheets and could *maybe* get the numbers we need directly from the DDX. Happy Weekend, thank you all again for the helpful discussion.