Structural engineers make design decisions with the objectives of making buildings materially
efficient, seismically resilient, and now increasingly, low carbon. This paper discusses the
importance of embodied carbon of buildings in the context of New Zealand’s emissions
reduction targets, and outlines MBIE’s Building for Climate Change (BfCC) programme
proposals to drive transformational change in the sector to reduce these emissions. It explores
the role that greater seismic resilience could play in achieving reductions in embodied carbon
of New Zealand buildings, including which elements of a building contribute significantly to
embodied emissions, and how these emissions can be minimised. Further research work is
required to determine the existence of the perceived trade-off between resilience and material
efficiency in structural design.
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| S3A-P2-Symons_Critchley.pdf | Download |
