Introducing our new Lifecycle Assessment Specialists

11.07.2022

We have committed to lowering the embodied carbon in our office and across our projects. To support this commitment, three members of our team are now qualified as Life Cycle Assessment specialists with OneClickLCA.

The built environment accounts for 39%[1] of the worlds carbon emissions. As reported by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development ‘buildings equivalent to the size of Paris are being built every week – but less than one per cent of them are assessed to determine their carbon footprint’[2].

Using OneClickLCA, Morrow + Lorraine are able to quantify and analyse proposals across the design stages of a project, introducing strategies for assessing, reporting and reducing carbon emissions with an ambition to achieve a carbon negative construction. We do this by integrating IMPACT-compliant software into the design process ([RICS A1-A5, B1-B5, C1-C4], with sequestration to be reported separately).

Our newly qualified LCA specialists use this software to assess and report across all our projects, advising where changes could be made to lower the embodied carbon from early concept through to Practical Completion. We are improving the capacity to design projects where informed and intelligent material alternatives have been proposed, reducing the embodied carbon of our current and future work.

Complementing this service, the in house LCA specialists also use OneClickLCA to carry out circular reporting and Lifecycle Costing to further understand our buildings and their impacts.

The images below show our work in progress on new residential apartments in Clerkenwell.

The living room uses low embodied carbon Clayworks to the ceiling and Graphenstone paint to the walls and bulkheads, both products also emit virtually no VOCs for a healthy internal environment. The floor is engineered FSC-certified timber parquet with a 100% recyclable underlay.
Same as above with the addition of FSC-Certified timber cladding to the wall, with solid oak slats which can be disassembled at end of life.
The bathrooms are tiled with high-recycled content wall tiles (minimum 69% recycled content).
In addition to the living room, the bedrooms have a feature Clayworks wall with Graphenstone paint elsewhere, reducing the embodied carbon and VOCs of the space. The carpet is Econyl which is 100% recycled content, predominantly made from discarded fishing nets and old carpets. The carpet also has a 100% recycled content backing and sits on a recycled content underlay.

If you would like to learn more about our embodied carbon, circularity or lifecycle costing services please get in touch with our Life Cycle Assessment specialists Erika Mikylionyte, Amber Luscombe and Stephanie Crombie, or email sustainability@morrowlorraine.com.

[1] World Green Building Council ‘Bringing Embodied Carbon Upfront’ 2019

[2] World Business Council for Sustainable Development ‘Net-zero buildings – Where do we stand?’ 2021