Thousands of kilograms of CO2 went into building Vancouver's 'carbon-zero' fire hall
CTV
The City of Vancouver says Canada's first "carbon-zero" fire hall will reduce operational emissions by 99.7 per cent compared to its predecessor, but there was still a significant amount of carbon emitted to construct the facility.
The City of Vancouver says Canada's first "carbon-zero" fire hall will reduce operational emissions by 99.7 per cent compared to its predecessor, but there was still a significant amount of carbon emitted to construct the facility.
In fact, the city estimates it will take approximately seven years for the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from operating the new Fire Hall 17 to offset the amount emitted building it.
The city referred CTV News to a case study it published in September 2020, while the building was under construction.
The study calculated the building's "embodied carbon emissions" as 778,000 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent, or about 424 kilograms per square metre.
"This makes up 97 per cent of the building’s total life cycle GHG emissions," the document reads. "Additionally, more than 90 per cent of the embodied carbon is released before the building starts its operation. Therefore, future zero-carbon buildings must explore ways to minimize not only their operational but also their embodied carbon emissions."
Most of the new fire hall's embodied carbon emissions – about 81 per cent, according to the document – are associated with the "product," meaning the materials used for the construction. Another nine per cent come from the construction process and the remaining 10 per cent from the building's anticipated 60 years of operation and emissions from its "end of life."
These calculations don't include the emissions associated with tearing down the old fire hall, but the city said that total is "expected to be low since approximately 91 per cent of the demolition waste was diverted from landfill."