CarbonBuzz emerged from a realisation that the construction industry suffers from a poor awareness of the link between CO₂ emissions and the energy use of buildings.
The project partners sought a means to support the industry in its drive to manage the energy use and CO₂ emissions from buildings and help architects and engineers to close the gap between designed energy use and actual energy use. This industry wide initiative is a significant collaboration between the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers.

 

Championed by Aedas R&D and using the CIBSE Energy Benchmarks with software from the BRE, CarbonBuzz provides a platform to benchmark and track project energy use from design to operation.

 

In doing so it allows practices to share and publish building energy use data, on an anonymous basis, in order to increase the evidence base for low energy design solutions. The platform presents a visual template for communicating energy use during design and post completion with a view to informing low carbon design and influencing future policy and regulation. It is an ongoing research initiative, but is already in a position to become an important component of the building design process. Practices choosing to publish data through this site will be able to gain 'carbon conscious' accreditation in the future.

 

Anyone can use CarbonBuzz. Architects and engineers can use it to manage their project energy use and emissions from design through to completion and beyond. The front page of the site presents the user with up-to-date feedback on data gathered through CarbonBuzz. It highlights differences between design forecast and actual values for each sector.

 

Please follow this link to download a pdf of the CarbonBuzz booklet.