Net Zero Carbon Made Simple (Mini-Course part 2/3)

[00:00:09] Welcome to The Green Urbanist, a podcast for urbanists fighting climate change. I'm Ross.

[00:00:23] Hello and welcome back to part two of this mini-course on kick-starting your sustainability-focused career.

[00:00:30] Just as a recap, in part one I gave you a bit of a framework of how you might start to develop your sustainability expertise in your career.

[00:00:39] The first thing is I recommend everyone to become a bit of a sustainability generalist.

[00:00:44] And what this means is learning a little bit about a wide range of topics related to sustainability so you understand the big picture.

[00:00:52] The second thing is depending on your career path, you might be interested in becoming more of a specialist

[00:00:57] and actually getting some specialist training and developing deep knowledge on a particular topic that you are passionate about

[00:01:04] and that you can have a big impact on in your career.

[00:01:08] And then the final thing, which again I recommend to everyone, is to become a climate champion or a sustainability champion

[00:01:15] in your profession, in your career and within your community.

[00:01:19] And this means you can start to influence your practice, your company, your organisation and your colleagues and clients and collaborators

[00:01:26] to start to become, start to move collectively towards more sustainable outcomes and take real climate action in your work.

[00:01:35] Now when you're just starting out, it's easy to get overwhelmed by all the new information you need to learn.

[00:01:41] There's a lot to get your head around.

[00:01:42] So in this session, I'm just going to give you a free excerpt from my course, which is called

[00:01:48] Sustainability Essentials for Built Environment Professionals.

[00:01:51] That's the course name.

[00:01:52] And this lesson is about net zero carbon.

[00:01:57] So yeah, enjoy the free training.

[00:01:59] Here we go.

[00:02:00] Now, seeing as you're listening to this on the podcast, I'm just giving you the audio version of this training.

[00:02:05] And you're not really getting the full experience because there are visuals.

[00:02:09] There's a presentation that goes alongside it.

[00:02:11] So what I'd invite you to do is go into your episode description in your podcast app, wherever you're listening.

[00:02:17] And you can click the link to go and actually see the video of this training session.

[00:02:22] But if you are driving or you're washing the dishes or you're doing something where you can't actually focus on a video,

[00:02:28] here's the audio version so you can get something out of that anyway.

[00:02:31] Let's just start off with a pretty basic definition.

[00:02:37] What is net zero carbon?

[00:02:39] All it means is causing no net release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

[00:02:45] There's a caveat there that actually it's not just about carbon dioxide.

[00:02:49] It's about all greenhouse gas emissions, including things like methane.

[00:02:52] But for our purposes, we're usually largely talking about carbon dioxide.

[00:02:58] The other thing to note is that I've underlined the word net in that definition.

[00:03:02] And that's because in reality, you can release some carbon dioxide, but you need to offset it.

[00:03:09] You need to sequester it in some way to bring your sort of accounting book of carbon back to zero and back to balance.

[00:03:16] And that's something that's really important at the moment because our wider systems haven't fully shifted off fossil fuels.

[00:03:23] So if you were looking at, let's say, delivering a net zero carbon building,

[00:03:27] it's likely you'll have to do some offsetting because we just haven't decarbonized everything around it yet.

[00:03:35] So interesting thing to look at here is this visual is very confusing.

[00:03:39] I apologize for that, but it is quite useful once you understand what's going on.

[00:03:42] This is the global net zero carbon targets by countries, different countries.

[00:03:48] And as you can see, the countries which have set net zero carbon targets, not all of them have.

[00:03:53] The ones that have set them are largely setting their target for 2050.

[00:03:58] And that's part of the Paris Agreement.

[00:04:00] That's what was agreed back in 2015.

[00:04:02] But what you get a sense is most of the world's major economies, except for Russia,

[00:04:08] have set net zero carbon targets in some shape or form.

[00:04:11] And so there is momentum behind this now.

[00:04:15] And there is things happening that are positive in terms of decarbonization.

[00:04:20] At the city level, there's also lots of different net zero carbon targets.

[00:04:24] I'd advise you to have a search online for your city that you're interested in

[00:04:29] and what their net zero carbon target is.

[00:04:32] And if they have a plan and go and read that, it's usually quite interesting to see what's in it.

[00:04:36] Although we often focus as built environment professionals on new developments, new places,

[00:04:42] the reality is that for post-industrial countries like the UK and in Europe,

[00:04:48] something like 80% of our built environment that will exist in the year 2050 has already been built.

[00:04:54] So we're dealing with historic places, places that have largely been already constructed.

[00:04:59] So for the most part, achieving net zero carbon across an entire city, for instance,

[00:05:06] is less about the new places we build, although that's important,

[00:05:10] and much more about how we retrofit the existing built environment for renewable energy,

[00:05:15] to get off gas as a heating and energy source,

[00:05:20] and to change how we move around to shift people off of polluting vehicles

[00:05:25] and onto sustainable modes of transport, like walking, cycling and public transport.

[00:05:30] But we'll move on now to talking more about new developments and new places,

[00:05:36] which I'm sure is probably more what you are involved in.

[00:05:39] I want to now get into some of the definitions that I think people find tricky.

[00:05:43] I want to talk about embodied carbon and operational carbon.

[00:05:46] These are two terms that you'll hear used a lot within our industry,

[00:05:50] particularly around architecture.

[00:05:52] This is a great visual from Letty, which is the Low Energy Transformation Initiative,

[00:05:56] and I'll link to their work in the description.

[00:05:59] It's worth checking that out if you want more really good technical guidance on net zero carbon.

[00:06:05] So this graph takes you through the lifespan of a typical building,

[00:06:09] and buildings are quite a useful starting point for starting to understand net zero carbon

[00:06:15] because it's pretty clear what the boundary of a building is.

[00:06:18] And, you know, those of you watching this, some of you might be architects,

[00:06:21] or you might be planners or developers who are working on individual building projects.

[00:06:25] So let's start there before we then make things more sort of complex.

[00:06:30] A lot of the upfront carbon in a building project

[00:06:33] is just in getting the building constructed and completed.

[00:06:37] Largely, this is what we call embodied carbon.

[00:06:40] It's the carbon that's embodied in the materials and the construction of that building

[00:06:45] or that piece of infrastructure.

[00:06:47] The same, you know, it would be the same thing for a bridge or for a street,

[00:06:51] you know, anything that has physical materials in it.

[00:06:54] There's energy involved in extracting those materials

[00:06:57] and then constructing it and putting it together.

[00:07:00] So there's a lot of upfront carbon in any sort of building project,

[00:07:02] and that's called embodied carbon.

[00:07:05] As the building moves through its years of life,

[00:07:09] in yellow here, you can see its operational carbon.

[00:07:12] And that is the energy and the fossil fuels in particular that are used

[00:07:16] just to keep the lights on, to heat it, to cool it,

[00:07:20] you know, power computers and microphones and everything.

[00:07:23] All the energy that's used in the operation of the building.

[00:07:26] And, you know, for most countries and most cities,

[00:07:31] that is still largely being delivered by fossil fuels,

[00:07:35] and that's why it's carbon intensive.

[00:07:37] Throughout the life cycle of a building,

[00:07:38] there's other moments when you start to bring in more embodied carbon.

[00:07:41] And this is generally in the replacement, refurbishment and maintenance cycles.

[00:07:46] And so you can see a few instances here where you have these pink bars,

[00:07:51] and this is where you're maybe going in and you're retrofitting,

[00:07:54] or you're taking off some cladding and replacing it,

[00:07:58] you're replacing the roof tiles.

[00:07:59] Whatever needs to happen just to keep a building working and functioning.

[00:08:02] We're often bringing new materials in,

[00:08:05] and that brings in more embodied carbon as part of that.

[00:08:09] Now, if we're lucky, our building will survive for many, many decades,

[00:08:13] maybe hundreds of years.

[00:08:14] But often buildings these days are built for about a 60-year lifespan.

[00:08:19] And then at the end of that, they either get demolished,

[00:08:22] or they get substantially refurbished or regenerated in some way.

[00:08:28] So there's an end-of-life carbon associated with that as well.

[00:08:32] You imagine if you need to get rid of an entire building,

[00:08:34] you are bringing in heavy machinery,

[00:08:37] and you're deconstructing or demolishing that,

[00:08:38] and then you're carting away the materials, often to landfill.

[00:08:44] So that gives you a picture of the embodied carbon

[00:08:47] and the operational carbon that is associated with a typical building project.

[00:08:52] And if we think about all those things together,

[00:08:54] we come up with a new term, which is whole-life carbon.

[00:08:57] The carbon that's associated with a building over its entire life,

[00:09:01] its whole-life carbon.

[00:09:03] So these are actually pretty simple concepts

[00:09:05] once you sort of just start thinking them through.

[00:09:07] It does get more complicated when you start thinking about things

[00:09:10] like a master plan or an entire city.

[00:09:14] You know, then you start getting into things like transport emissions

[00:09:17] and all that other stuff as well,

[00:09:19] which does make things more complex.

[00:09:21] And I think partly why a lot of people avoid

[00:09:23] actually including those within their calculations,

[00:09:25] and why there's been lots and lots of great work done by architects and engineers

[00:09:29] about nets or carbon buildings.

[00:09:31] But there's very few people putting all the pieces together

[00:09:34] at the master plan or the city level,

[00:09:37] including things like transport emissions, lifestyle emissions,

[00:09:40] because it just is much more difficult to measure.

[00:09:44] Okay, where am I going with this?

[00:09:47] Now, the other thing I want,

[00:09:48] while we stick on the building example for now,

[00:09:51] I want to explain the difference between net zero,

[00:09:56] zero carbon in terms of operational energy

[00:09:58] or zero carbon in terms of whole-life carbon,

[00:10:01] and then net zero operational carbon, net zero life carbon.

[00:10:05] So this is a bit of a complex graph.

[00:10:06] I actually don't have a source for this,

[00:10:08] but I'll try and add it in if I find where this came from,

[00:10:11] because it is, you know, it's quite a useful graph.

[00:10:13] But essentially, you will hear these terms used in the industry,

[00:10:17] and it's good to clarify what they mean.

[00:10:20] And I think sometimes people misuse them,

[00:10:23] you know, without really meaning to cause any harm,

[00:10:25] but it can be misleading.

[00:10:27] So if someone describes their building as zero carbon,

[00:10:32] clarify with them what they actually mean by that.

[00:10:34] Zero carbon means that there's zero emissions

[00:10:37] associated with it,

[00:10:38] and there's been no offsetting done.

[00:10:40] That's very rare.

[00:10:42] Typically, if something is zero carbon,

[00:10:45] it's actually net zero carbon,

[00:10:47] which means there has been some offsetting done.

[00:10:50] There's been emissions associated

[00:10:52] with its construction operation,

[00:10:54] but they are sequestering that

[00:10:56] either through the use of natural materials

[00:10:59] or with an offsetting scheme

[00:11:01] like they're planting trees somewhere else.

[00:11:04] So bear that in mind.

[00:11:06] The other thing is the difference between

[00:11:07] zero whole life carbon and zero operational carbon.

[00:11:11] Sometimes people will say,

[00:11:13] we designed and delivered a net zero carbon building.

[00:11:15] Isn't this amazing?

[00:11:16] And then you dig into the details,

[00:11:18] and you know, halfway down the article,

[00:11:20] it says net zero in its operation,

[00:11:22] which means they haven't taken into account

[00:11:24] the embodied carbon in the construction,

[00:11:27] the materials that are used.

[00:11:28] They're only talking about the energy used

[00:11:30] over the course of the building's life,

[00:11:32] the electricity,

[00:11:33] the energy that's used in the building.

[00:11:35] That's still an amazing thing

[00:11:37] to achieve net zero carbon in operation.

[00:11:39] Brilliant.

[00:11:40] But we need to move beyond that

[00:11:42] towards a whole life carbon approach

[00:11:43] where we're also thinking about

[00:11:44] the embodied carbon in the materials.

[00:11:47] It's just a much more holistic perspective.

[00:11:51] Okay, there you go.

[00:11:52] There's your training for part two of this mini course.

[00:11:56] If you enjoyed that,

[00:11:57] and if you found it useful,

[00:11:58] I think you're really going to love the course,

[00:12:01] the full course,

[00:12:02] Sustainability Essentials

[00:12:03] for Built Environment Professionals.

[00:12:04] The purpose of the course is to take people,

[00:12:07] perhaps like you,

[00:12:08] who are at the beginning

[00:12:09] of their sustainability journey

[00:12:10] and who want to really kickstart their learning

[00:12:12] so they can start to take meaningful climate action

[00:12:15] in their career.

[00:12:16] The course explains a range of key concepts

[00:12:19] like net zero carbon

[00:12:20] in easy digestible lessons.

[00:12:24] And the aim of the course

[00:12:25] is to help you feel empowered

[00:12:26] so that you can take meaningful climate action

[00:12:28] in your career.

[00:12:30] The course will be available

[00:12:32] to book onto very soon

[00:12:34] on the 18th of November.

[00:12:36] Now, you might be thinking

[00:12:37] that you're super busy

[00:12:38] and that your schedule is already full

[00:12:40] and that you don't have time

[00:12:41] for a lengthy course.

[00:12:43] And look, we've all sat through

[00:12:46] lengthy CPD training sessions

[00:12:48] where it's death by PowerPoint

[00:12:50] and there's 300 slides.

[00:12:52] And by the end of it,

[00:12:53] you just feel totally brain dead

[00:12:54] and you're not really sure

[00:12:55] how much you really learned.

[00:12:56] This isn't one of those courses.

[00:12:58] I've purposefully designed this

[00:13:00] to be succinct to the point

[00:13:02] and the entire course

[00:13:03] is only about two hours in length

[00:13:06] and it's made up

[00:13:07] of bite-sized video lessons.

[00:13:09] Each one is about 15 minutes in length.

[00:13:11] So that means

[00:13:12] if you want to just sit down

[00:13:13] and binge it all in an afternoon,

[00:13:15] you can do that.

[00:13:16] But more importantly,

[00:13:17] you can actually do it

[00:13:18] in a self-paced way.

[00:13:19] So you can stretch it out

[00:13:20] over a week,

[00:13:21] do it, you know,

[00:13:22] on your lunch break,

[00:13:23] do it in moments

[00:13:24] when you have some free time

[00:13:26] and that just helps you

[00:13:27] to fit it into a busy schedule

[00:13:29] because, look,

[00:13:30] I totally get it

[00:13:31] that it's hard to squeeze in time

[00:13:33] for learning

[00:13:34] when you've got millions

[00:13:35] of things to do

[00:13:36] in your day job.

[00:13:38] Now, something that sometimes

[00:13:40] stops people

[00:13:41] from actually jumping in

[00:13:43] to topics like sustainability

[00:13:45] is they feel like

[00:13:46] if they don't have

[00:13:47] a technical background

[00:13:48] or background in science

[00:13:49] or they've actually studied

[00:13:50] sustainability at university

[00:13:52] that they won't understand it

[00:13:53] or it will just be

[00:13:54] too much for them,

[00:13:55] too technical.

[00:13:56] Again, I totally get that

[00:13:58] and I was the same

[00:13:59] when I was just starting out

[00:14:00] and so I've really tried

[00:14:02] to explain everything

[00:14:03] in the course

[00:14:04] in plain English

[00:14:05] using relatable terms.

[00:14:06] If I introduce

[00:14:07] any new terminology,

[00:14:09] which I do

[00:14:09] because it's useful

[00:14:10] to know particular

[00:14:11] technical terms,

[00:14:12] I explain fully

[00:14:13] what they are

[00:14:14] in a simple way.

[00:14:15] So this is really

[00:14:17] a key part

[00:14:18] of kickstarting your learning,

[00:14:20] learning the sort of terminology,

[00:14:21] the key concepts

[00:14:22] which at the moment

[00:14:23] might feel a bit distant

[00:14:25] and a bit difficult

[00:14:25] to get your head around.

[00:14:28] So it's really designed

[00:14:29] for people like you,

[00:14:30] architects,

[00:14:31] urban designers,

[00:14:32] urban planners,

[00:14:33] landscape architects,

[00:14:34] people who don't necessarily

[00:14:35] have a background

[00:14:36] in sustainability.

[00:14:38] As I said

[00:14:39] in the previous episode,

[00:14:41] any built environment job

[00:14:42] can become a

[00:14:43] sustainability focused job

[00:14:45] and we need people

[00:14:45] like you

[00:14:46] to be jumping into this

[00:14:47] and making a difference.

[00:14:49] Lesson three,

[00:14:50] the final part

[00:14:51] of this little mini series,

[00:14:52] we're actually going

[00:14:53] to go beyond

[00:14:54] net zero carbon

[00:14:55] and I'm going to introduce

[00:14:56] a topic called

[00:14:56] regenerative design.

[00:14:58] You might have heard

[00:14:59] about this.

[00:14:59] It's starting to get

[00:15:00] more and more popular

[00:15:01] over the last couple of years

[00:15:02] but again,

[00:15:03] it can be one of those

[00:15:04] concepts that

[00:15:05] sometimes means

[00:15:06] different things

[00:15:07] to different people,

[00:15:07] can be a bit tricky

[00:15:08] to get your head around

[00:15:09] so I'm going to explain

[00:15:10] that with lots of

[00:15:11] quite inspiring case studies

[00:15:13] and examples

[00:15:13] so you definitely

[00:15:14] don't want to miss that.

[00:15:15] That lesson will be

[00:15:16] coming out

[00:15:17] as a podcast episode

[00:15:18] in two days time

[00:15:20] but if you want to

[00:15:21] get access

[00:15:21] to the video training

[00:15:23] you need to get

[00:15:24] on the newsletter list

[00:15:25] and that's the best way

[00:15:27] so follow the link

[00:15:28] in the episode description

[00:15:29] to go to the course page

[00:15:31] and put in your email

[00:15:32] address to get on

[00:15:33] the mailing list

[00:15:33] and then you'll get

[00:15:34] the training straight

[00:15:35] into your inbox

[00:15:35] and I'll also let you know

[00:15:37] once the course goes live

[00:15:39] and is available

[00:15:39] for enrolment

[00:15:40] if that is useful for you.