Woodknowledge Wales - Innovation in Zero Carbon Design. Part 2: Designing with Low Carbon Materials

The climate emergency means rethinking the materials we use to design homes. Choosing low-carbon materials for construction can significantly reduce up-front and whole-life embodied carbon emissions.

Achieving a low carbon housing fabric is a significant challenge particularly considering the ambitious targets established within the Woodknowledge Wales Net-Zero Whole Life Carbon Framework as well as those published by RIBA and LETI.

Designers have to design as well as navigate regulation, complex data-rich documentation and resistance to change. This is a potential minefield for the uninitiated but don’t despair! We have prepared a workshop that shares our experiences of conducting embodied carbon analysis as part of a social housing project in Wales.

This course provides insight based on our experience of conducting whole-life embodied carbon analysis as part of a social housing project in Wales.

 Course content

This Designing with Low Carbon Materials course presents some key results from Zero Carbon Homes: Zero Carbon Timber Solutions for Wales. It is led by Dr Rob Thomas and Carl Williams,  Hiraeth Architecture, and James Moxey, Woodknowledge Wales.

We will present approaches to reduce whole-life embodied carbon solutions relevant for clients who are looking to procure zero-carbon homes, designers looking to design zero-carbon homes and house builders looking to build zero carbon homes.

The course will cover the following:

• An overview of calculating embodied carbon.
• Environmental Product Declarations for low carbon materials (and how to read them).
• The relationship between up-front and whole-life embodied carbon emissions.
• Embodied carbon emissions and the development of a fabric first approach.
• The performance of low carbon fabrics.

Book your place here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/innovation-in-zero-carbon-design-part-2-designing-with-low-carbon-material-tickets-142898002773

This course is part of the Forest Nation Centre training programme delivered with support from Welsh Government. Find out more about the programme on our website.