GLOSSARY

Embodied carbon, defined.

The vocabulary of whole-life carbon is inconsistent across standards, software and regulation — and the same word often means two things. These are the definitions used throughout this site, written to be quotable on their own.

Embodied carbon
The greenhouse gas emissions associated with producing, transporting, installing, maintaining and disposing of a building's materials — everything except the energy the building consumes in use. Read more →
Whole-life carbon
The total greenhouse gas emissions of a building across its full life cycle, combining embodied carbon with operational emissions. This is what the EPBD requires to be disclosed as life-cycle GWP. Read more →
Life-cycle GWP
Global Warming Potential expressed over a building's whole life cycle, measured in kg CO₂-equivalent. Under the revised EPBD it must appear on the energy performance certificate of new buildings over 1,000 m² from 1 January 2028, and all new buildings from 1 January 2030. Read more →
EN 15978
The European standard for assessing the environmental performance of buildings. It defines the life-cycle modules (A to D) that make two carbon figures comparable, and it is the method the EPBD names for calculating life-cycle GWP. Read more →
Upfront carbon
Modules A1–A5: the emissions released before a building is handed over, covering material production, transport and construction. It is already spent on day one and cannot be recovered by operating the building well. Read more →
EPD (Environmental Product Declaration)
A third-party-verified declaration of a specific product's environmental impact, prepared under EN 15804. It describes that product from that plant, rather than a material class in general. Read more →
ICE database
The Inventory of Carbon and Energy: a widely used generic dataset of embodied carbon factors by material class. Appropriate for early-stage estimating, where no specific product has been chosen yet. Read more →
Circularity pathway
The decision recorded against an existing building element — retain, reuse, refinish, replace, or new — which determines how much of its embodied carbon is avoided. Read more →
Pre-assessment
An indicative carbon estimate made at concept stage, when the design can still change. It supports a decision between options; it is not a certified assessment and cannot be the figure disclosed on a certificate. Read more →
EPBD
The Energy Performance of Buildings Directive. The 2024 recast (Directive (EU) 2024/1275) introduced the duty to calculate and disclose a new building's life-cycle GWP, and requires Member States to notify national limit-value roadmaps by 1 January 2027. Read more →

Figures quoted here are the regulatory thresholds as at August 2026. Indicative assessment does not replace a verified life-cycle assessment or an energy performance certificate.