Ireland’s Life-Cycle Global Warming Potential Calculation Methodology

Introduction

The 2024 recast of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) promotes policies that will help achieve a highly energy efficient building stock by 2050. This will create a stable environment for investment decisions, enabling consumers and businesses to make more informed decisions to save energy and money. 

A key measure within the EPBD is the introduction of the life-cycle global warming potential (GWP) of the total embodied carbon of a building, under Article 7 (2). The GWP will include both operation and embodied carbon emissions, over the building’s life-cycle, 50 years.

To fulfil this requirement Ireland is required to develop an embodied carbon database and methodology. These tools will help determine the entire embodied carbon of building materials in a building from construction, usage, renovation and demolition. This knowledge will help inform design team members, at an early design stage, of the more optimal embodied carbon schematic for their project.

By January 2027 Ireland must notify the European Commission of a roadmap detailing the introduction of limit values on the total cumulative life-cycle global warming potential of all new buildings and set targets for new buildings from 2030.

The EPBD requires that the life cycle GWP of a building be included in the Building Energy Rating (BER) from:

• January 2028 for all new buildings with a useful floor area larger than 1000m²
• January 2030 for all new buildings

To prepare for this requirement SEAI held a public consultation in April-May 2025 to gather stakeholder feedback on:

• Recommendations on the development of Ireland’s Life Cycle GWP Calculation Methodology
• Ireland’s National Embodied Carbon Database of Building Materials
• Life-Cycle Global Warming Potential Calculation Methodology

Download the first version of SEAI Life-Cycle Global Warming Potential Calculation Workbook for Buildings.

This workbook allows Assessors to calculate the life-cycle GWP for buildings in accordance with the requirements of the SEAI calculation methodology. The assessment is based on carbon factors from Ireland’s National embodied carbon Database of Building Materials and default scenarios, as outlined in the methodology.

Please note that the workbook and methodology are in initial draft stage and will be updated to include product specific data and project specific scenarios in the future.

Documents

Life-Cycle Global Warming Potential Calculation Methodology 

This document sets out SEAI’s technical methodology for assessing GWP of buildings along their entire life-cycle. This methodology is compliant with the provisions of the EPBD recast, the draft Delegated Act amending Annex III of the EPBD recast and the draft guidance on the life-cycle Global Warming Potential of new buildings (Article 7(2), (5)).

Recommendation on Ireland’s LC GWP Methodology 

The objective of this report is to develop recommendations on a technical methodology for the calculation of the life-cycle GWP of buildings which can be applied in Ireland and support national alignment with the requirements outlined within Article 7(2) of the EPBD recast. Life cycle GWP, often referred to as Whole Life Carbon (WLC) is an indicator which quantifies the global warming potential of a building caused by carbon emissions along its full life-cycle, including both operational and embodied emissions. 

Recommendation on Ireland’s National EC Database of Building Materials 

The purpose of this report is to review and provide detailed guidance on the best approach for the development and maintenance of a centralised national database for all common building materials and their embodied carbon emissions.