11 th International Conference on Sustainable Energy technologies (SET-2012) September 2-5, 2012 Vancouver, Canada MEASURING LIFECYCLE CARBON FOOTPRINT OF A CASE STUDY IN MEXICO Ali M.S. Kashkooli 1* , Rafael M. Eufrasio 2 , Hasim Altan 3 1,2,3 School of Architecture, The University of Sheffield, Arts Tower, Western Bank, Sheffield, United Kingdom, S10 2TN 1* Corresponding Author: alik188@yahoo.com , 2 arp11re@sheffield.ac.uk , 3 h.altan@sheffield.ac.uk ABSTRACT Over the last decades, a great intention of the world has been to manage the global warming in a way less damaging to the human life on the Earth. Hence, the building sector is significantly responsible for the carbon emissions of which can support the disaster. Thus, the prospective Building Lifecycle Assessment (BLCA) methodologies have been adopted in several software tools to model and simulate the buildings before construction, in order to reduce carbon emissions during the implementation process. However, the results of these methodologies are not as efficient, user-friendly, precise and localised to benefit both the building design and decision making processes. The paper presents a new BLCA methodology developed in the University of Sheffield (UK), and its application to a case study in Mexico. The main aim of the study is to test the previously introduced methodology by adapting other local programmes and standards. The particular focus of calculation in this study is ‘Carbon’ (embodied carbon, services-life carbon and total carbon). The Methodology calculates the carbon footprint during the BLCA in a more accurate system by the use of flexible and updatable carbon inventories. It also benefits from a programme developed by incorporating ‘Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’ to Latin America in order to calculate carbon dioxide emissions during the service-life of building in three geographical scenarios. The results reveal the efficiency of the new BLCA methodology and its aptitude of adaptation with the local programmes to calculate buildings’ carbon footprint. Moreover, it highlights the advantages such as sensitivity and credibility of the outputs in comparison with the existing BLCA tools. This attitude and methodology can be applied to design and decision making in the construction sector. Keywords: Building LCA, semi-quantitative methodology, carbon emissions, results simplicity and efficiency, localisation, total carbon emissions. INTRODUCTION A Building Lifecycle Assessment (BLCA) is one of the main legislative tools established on minimisation of the building’s impact on the environment. It can be defined as a process which measures the lifetime environmental performance from extraction to manufacturing then transportation, installation, use, maintenance and finally disposal/recycling (Athena 2009). The basic information about the environmental effects of projects are being collected, both by the developers and from other sources to be taken into account by the relevant decision- making authority/investor before a decision is given on whether the development should go ahead (Komínková 2008). In recent years, a major attention has been attracted to investigation of the carbon emission during the construction process and the building service-life (Masters 2001; Hauschild 2005; ISO14040 2006; LexicueEncycloBio 2009; Zabalza Bribián, Aranda Usón et al. 2009). In terms of sustainability and environmental impact, the performance of materials and structures in buildings should strive for minimising carbon footprint. However in many countries, there is no clear methodology to achieve reliable results for calculating carbon footprint of building design scenarios during their lifecycle. Accordingly, the main purpose of this study is to examine the new semi-quantitative methodology (Kashkooli and Altan 2010) developed in the School of Architecture at the University of Sheffield for adapting new case studies outside the United Kingdom. This investigation is based on calculation of carbon emissions (embodied carbon (EC), service-life carbon (SLC) and the total carbon emissions) in a case study (a typical building cell) in Mexico considering three geographical scenarios. Hence, the methodology considers and benefits from methodology of IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change) (IPCC 2007) for calculation of the SLC. The study was carried out to examine the capability of the methodology in terms of showing the best choices of design from carbon efficiency view point in other locations around the world (outside the UK). METHODOLOGY A Simple BLCA Tool The semi-quantitative methodology was developed in a PhD research investigating existing building LCA tools for the category of ‘design and decision-making support’ (Petersen 2002; Forsberga and Malmborgc 2004; Ortiz, Castells et al. 2007; Haapio and Viitaniemi 2008; Raymond and Culaba 2009) in order to establish a