Whole Life Carbon Assessment, RICS & Greater London Authority

Whole Life Carbon Assessment, GLA / RICS

This guidance supports the 'Carbon assessment, Greater London Authority' tool, which is designed to fulfill the requirements of RICS and that of the London plan. The assessments follow the RICS PS with several additions written to the GLA guide. Additionally it can be used for the Green Mark Singapore scheme, the guidance for that you can find here: Green Mark Singapore

What is included in the scope?

• It reports A1-A3, A4 and A5 phase emissions
• It reports B1, B2, B3, B4-5, B6a/B6b and B7 emissions. (B6 regulated and unregulated)
• It reports C1, C2, C3 and C4 (C1 with a scenario) and D phase emissions
• It allows classifying all different inputs according to RICS
• It allows for choosing a discounting scenario
• The results excel report provides mass data which can be filled into the GLA template

Follow these steps to complete an assessment for the London Plan

Create a project and select the right calculation tool

Create a building project and select the GLA tool as the chosen calculation tool.

Create your first design and set up the LCA parameters

Set up your first design and go through the LCA parameters.

• Default service life: RICS default service life
• Default transportation distance: UK- RICS
• Material manufacturing localisation target: United Kingdom Electricity profile - SAP10_IEA2015 SAP 10.1 and 10.2
• End-of-life scenario - Market scenarios (This provides the required C1-C4 breakdown)
• End-of-life energy recovery (module D) substituted energy mix (only for Market scenarios) - District heat UK / Several profiles - IEA2019

Check the mandatory scope

Check the mandatory scope of required elements from the RICS or GLA guidance documents. 

Fill in the calculation period

Set the calculation period to 60 years by opening ‘Calculation Period’ and inputting 60 years.

Fill in the building area

Fill in the Building area question form by entering the GIFA (Gross Internal Floor Area).

Input required material data

Fill in your project information in One Click LCA by entering the design either manually or by import your data (see different import options here; guidance for data import can be found here). If you need help finding the right datasets for your building materials, check our guidance pages here and here.

Mass data for the materials is automatically added to the detailed report.

For transportation of the materials (A4), each material row will receive a default transportation distance and method based on the material type and RICS methodology. These values can be adjusted manually. If you do not have information on the exact transportation distances, you can adjust the values according to country/region of origin, using the default values given on RICS guidance:

Transport scenario	km by road	km by sea
Locally manufactured	50
Nationally manufactured	300
European manufactured	1500
Globally manufactured	200	10000

For the repair rate (B3) no accurate methodology exists to estimate this as of today, however, if filled in this percentage is often not more than 1 or 2 % (as this is the annual repair rate). Not all materials need to be repaired annually, and their rate depends on numerous factors like material quality, how it is installed, the expertise of craftsmen installing the materials, building type, building usage, building location, and the climate zone the building is in. As per GLA guidance, these may be estimated as 25 percent of module B2, as per the RICS PS (item 3.5.3.3).

Input annual energy or water consumption (B6 & B7)

Input energy and water as required by scope. Ensure that for energy consumption you have marked if the energy is for regulated or unregulated usage. Unregulated energy should include carbon emissions from non- building-related systems, such as ICT equipment, and from the operation of building-integrated systems, such as lifts.

For your assessment, the electricity profile selected should be 'Electricity, United Kingdom, SAP 10.1 and 10.2'.

Input construction site operations data (A5 & Optional C1)

Input construction site operations data and include a C1 deconstruction/demolition scenario if you have used one of the advanced end-of-life options (market-based or EPD EOL) in the LCA parameters. 

Input emissions and removals query (Optional B1)

Input refrigerants, concrete carbonization and vegetation carbon withdrawals. 

Input annual maintenance (B2)

Input the consumption of grid electricity, water, fuels, and replacements as required for annual maintenance. Unfortunately, no accurate methodology to estimate B2 emissions exists as of today, however as per GLA guidance, for the design stage a total figure of 10 kgCO2e/m2 gross internal area (GIA) may be used to cover all building element categories, or 1 percent of modules A1-A5, whichever is greater.

Input discounting scenarios

As per the most recent GLA guidance, at present, the data is not reliable to accurately account for the decarbonisation of the UK grid's embodied carbon emissions. Applicants are therefore not required to account for the long-term decarbonisation of the electricity grid in their WLC assessments, in line with EN 15978.

Any applicants who wish to account for grid decarbonisation in their WLC assessment should discuss and agree on their proposed approach with the GLA.

In One Click LCA, the query 'discounting scenarios' you can select the 'electricity grid decarbonization scenario (RICS/GLA) which can be used to account for grid decarbonization, assuming 20% of material impacts in B2-5 and D stages derive from electricity consumption. It uses the FES 2020 Steady Progression Scenario. 

Download the results report (and for GLA only: Fill in the GLA template)

Download LCA results

1a. Navigate to the results page, click on 'more actions' and download the detailed report.

The results report has mass data on each of the RICS categories as well which will be required for the GLA template. 

1b. Navigate to the results page and click on 'Download Results Summary' which will give you an excel report which has the results page table for easier copying into the GLA template. 

Fill in the GLA template and submit your results

Reporting templates can be found at the following link: Whole Life-Cycle Carbon Assessments Guidance