Analysing how buildings can be made low carbon by retrofit/other measures

1. Critical analysis of Welsh Parliament Senedd Commission
Carbon Neutral Strategy: 2021 — 2030
2. Calculate the office operational carbon emissions of an office building in the parliament and how retrofits can impact the carbon emission
3. Whole life Carbon footprint of windows of the building- by comparing Aluminium window vs UPVC windows
4. Comparison of operational verses Embodied Carbon

Low carbon buildings reduce greenhouse gas emissions and are more sustainable

The tools used in this work were:
1. Energy balance tool ( excel) for analysis the change in carbon emission using various retrofit measures
2. The embodied carbon of windows was made using a carbon calculator (excel tool) which measures the greenhouse gas impacts of construction activities in terms of carbon dioxide equivalency (CO2e). It does this by calculating the embodied CO2e of materials plus the CO2e associated with their transportation. It also considers personnel travel, site energy use and waste management.

With buildings becoming more energy efficient, their operational carbon is declining, and the proportion of embodied carbon is increasing. Embodied carbon is accounted during production and assembly on site while operational carbon is throughout the lifecycle of the building; operational carbon impact is over a longer time whereas the former is impactful due to the short span in which it is produced.
The Welsh Parliament report says that the short term strategies concerning building efficiency and LED lights predict 240 tonnes of carbon savings and an investment of £130,000 and an expected annual savings of almost £150,000. However, a simple calculation done later in this study concerning windows, does not show a return on investment as predicted in this statement. It could be also that a bulk of a short term strategies is attributed to the behavioural aspects of inhabitants and therefore