Buildings are one of the three major sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, mainly due to the consumption of large amounts of fossil fuels during their life cycle. This project responds to plans of constructing low carbon cities and promoting low carbon and energy-efficient buildings by studying the feasibility of applying environmental impact assessment on low carbon buildings. We define low carbon buildings as in 40 years life cycle and 50% overall carbon emission reductions during both construction and operation stages. We first introduce the key points of buildings assessment system from respective country and international energy review system, followed by collecting and summarizing energy saving and reduction carbon items emphasized by United Kingdom BREEAM, United States LEED, Japan CASBEE, Germany DNGB, Hong Kong Code of Practice for Energy Audit in Buildings, China Energy Efficiency Evaluation and Label of Buildings, EU EPBD (Energy Performance of Buildings Directive), Germany EnEV, and United Kingdom Energy Efficiency Rating Guide for homes and home appliances in the UK. We subsequently collect and summarize relevant literatures about Taiwan Green Buildings Assessment System, aiming to select representative environmental impact statement as a research object. We initially propose three assessment concepts for low carbon buildings including: "Reduction Performance", "Minimum Performance", and "Construction Performance" in combination with the concept of energy efficiency certificates for feasibility analysis and application. We have hold "Zero carbon buildings technology & application workshop" and "Low carbon buildings technology and application workshop" to solicit expert consulting and public opinions before final decision. We propose to adopt the 「Carbon Performance」as the base of low carbon buildings assessment in Taiwan. It takes into account environmental load as well as energy saving and carbon reduction measures during both construction and operation stages. This approach calculates the carbon reduction performance using home-designed Excel spreadsheet program to achieve simple working and consistent results. The approach was applied for case calculations and resulted in the proposed “Assessment of greenhouse gases emissions from buildings” technical specification draft. The assessment result of Carbon Reduction Performance is to be used only by the Environmental Impact Assessment Committee members for value judgment.

Low carbon buildings, Environmental impact assessment, Building life cycle