INSTRUCTION MANUAL

FOR
INDUSTRIAL BUILDING
EMBODIED CARBON
CALCULATOR
Table of Contents
Introduction to the Embodied Carbon Calculator ........................................................ 1
Navigating through the Embodied Carbon Calculator ................................................ 2
Introduction Tab ................................................................................................... 2
Sheet Navigation Tab ........................................................................................... 4
Project Details ....................................................................................................... 5
Super Structure/Sub Structure ............................................................................ 9
Construction Phase ............................................................................................ 22
Results Charts & Tables .................................................................................... 26
Declaration .......................................................................................................... 35
Glossary ................................................................................................................... 37
Legend ..................................................................................................................... 37
Introduction to the Embodied Carbon Calculator
This Embodied Carbon Calculator (ECC) is designed to allow users to evaluate the
project embodied carbon at the initial design, tender, construction evaluation, final
assessment, and verification stages.
The embodied carbon analysed by this calculator includes the carbon emissions
associated with building materials – raw material extraction, transportation of raw
materials, and manufacturing of the building materials, transportation of building
materials from the factory to construction site as well as the emissions associated with
the construction process. This version of the calculator does not evaluate the
embodied carbon associate with Mechanical and Electrical systems.
A database has been integrated in the calculator. This allows the calculator to provide
recommended emission factors for the embodied carbon of building materials (kg CO2-
eq per unit of building material), marine transportation distance, emission factors of
different transport vessels/trucks and emission factors associated with local utilities to
facilitate the calculation.
The emission factors are derived from publicly available environmental product
declaration (EPDs), modelling using life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology as well
as literature and reports.
In addition, the calculator generates the results in the format of both tables and charts
to allow for the ease of evaluation and analysis.
The calculator is built in Microsoft Excel and is compatible with Excel365 version. The
detailed steps on how the calculator may be used for embodied carbon calculations is
described in the subsequent pages.

1
Navigating through the Embodied Carbon Calculator
Introduction Tab
Upon opening the Excel document, the user will be on the introduction page. The
introduction page provides a brief introduction to the ECC, the methodologies used
to calculate the building project’s embodied carbon and a guide on the types of
data required to perform the calculation.
The introduction page consists of the following sections:
o Introduction to Embodied Carbon
o List of Required Information
o Methodology Adopted
o Term of Use

List of Required Information

The user may find the list and types of information required for the calculation of a
building’s embodied carbon.

2
Methodology Adopted

This section shows the different formulations and information used in the embodied
carbon calculator.
Term of Use
This section elaborates on the embodied carbon calculator’s Term of Use.

3
Sheet Navigation Tab

The second tab of the embodied carbon calculator displays the upcoming tabs that
the user will be advancing into. The hyperlinks can be used for quick access to
these tabs. Data requirements are also listed in column C.

4
Project Details

This tab describes the different types of details required regarding the building
project of interest. It also provides a summary of Embodied carbon results and
indicators pertaining to the Green Mark 2021 Whole Life Carbon Section Scoring.
The user can input specific information on the details of the project. Note that
throughout the calculator, blue cells indicate cells where input is required.

Under the “Status” field, different project statuses may be selected based on the
progress of the project. The description of the difference phases is shown in the
table below. As an example, a project in the initial design phase may utilise
estimated values or global values in the computation of embodied carbon. As the

5
project moves to the construction phase, more detailed information will become
available, and the user may change the project status to reflect this.

Note:

Initial Design: It refers to the initial process of planning and design of the structure for the
building project.

Tender: It refers to the various material supplier evaluation based on their materials
embodied carbons.

Construction Evaluation: The evaluation stage on the energy consumption on the various
materials supplied.

Final Assessment: The completion stage of the whole construction of the materials and its
associated components inputs.

Verification: For Green Mark Whole-Life Carbon Section Scoring under CN1.1 (II)
Embodied Carbon Calculation purpose.

The project details tab also showcases the summarized results of the embodied
carbon of the project. In addition, should there be any supporting documents
required by the calculator, the project details page will also show the carbon values
gathered and generated.

6
7
8
Super Structure/Sub Structure

The Super Structure and Sub Structure tabs allow the user to input data required
to compute the material and transport embodied carbon for the respective
structures.
Key materials are listed in the left most column. For example, ‘Admixture’ and
‘Reinforcement Bar and Rod’. On the left most side of the screen, there are “+”
(positive sign button) and “-” (negative sign button). These buttons allow the user
to expand the material section of interest to input detailed information for each
material.

The user may also use the two overall expansion buttons at the top left-hand side
of the excel file. They enable the user to hide all necessary inputs fields under each
material section by clicking the “1” button and expand them out by selecting the “2”
button.

9
As both the Super and Sub structure tabs are similar, the Super structure tab will
be used as an example to illustrate the necessary steps and functions to compute
the embodied carbon.

Note: Both Super structure and Sub structure tabs are of same template to cater to different
materials for respective structures associated with a building project.

Step 1: Identify the section for the relevant material.

The materials listed in the Super/Sub structure tabs are in the following order:
- Admixtures
- Cement
- Coarse Aggregates
- Fine Aggregates
- Water
- Concrete (Natural)
- Eco Concrete (15% Fly Ash Replacement)
- Eco Concrete (30% Fly Ash Replacement)
- Eco Concrete (25% GGBS Replacement)
- Eco Concrete (50% GGBS Replacement)
- Precast Concrete (Natural)
- Precast Eco Concrete (15% Fly Ash Replacement)
- Precast Eco Concrete (30% Fly Ash Replacement)
- Precast Eco Concrete (25% GGBS Replacement)
- Precast Eco Concrete (50% GGBS Replacement)
- Glass
- Steel
- Reinforcement Bar and Rod
- Steel Section
- Aluminium
- Timber
- Tiles
- Paint
- Bricks
- Waterproofing
- Carpet
- Copper

10
- Mineral Wool
- Paper
- Plaster
- Plastic
- Sealant
- For Self Inputs (Materials)

If the relevant material is not found in any of the listed materials, the user can input
the material under the self-input section at the bottom of the page. The category
under the self-input section allows the user to indicate the corresponding material
type for the self-input material.

Note: If the grade of a material is not available in the dropdown list, the user may select the
nearest grade. For example, if Grade 60 concrete is not available, the user may select Grade 50
concrete. Alternatively, the user may input Grade 60 concrete into the self-input section, select
the product type as ‘concrete’ and provide the relevant emission factor value from the user’s own
knowledge and the supporting documents.

Step 2: Select relevant component under the corresponding material type

We will be using Admixture as an example to further illustrate how the calculator

may be used. Once Step 1 is completed, the user may proceed to select the
relevant component under this material type (e.g. Air entrainers, Waster resisting,
Retarders).

11
Once the relevant component is selected, a global median emission factor value
will appear in the “Emission Factor” field. The “Value Used” field in column G
displays the type of value (e.g. Global).

Note: The emission factor is based on the pre-determined global median derived from the data
obtained from Environment Product Declarations (EPDs) in the material database or industry-
accepted databases.

Step 3: If information on the country of origin of the material is known, select the
country of origin for the selected material component. The country of origin refers
to the country in which the selected material component is imported from.

Once the country of origin is selected, the calculator will also show the transport
distance for the material component being imported from its origin to the user.

12
If the country selected has a country-specific emission factor, the “Emission factor”
field will show the country-specific emission factor and the “Value Used” field will
changed from the initial “Global” to “Country”, “LCA” or “Country-extrapolated”. The
meaning of each label is shown in the table in the following page.

Label in “Value Used” field Definition

User defined Defined by the user, supporting documents are required
Country The median value based on relevant EPDs from the country
LCA The value was computed based on Life Cycle Assessment
Country-extrapolated The value was extrapolated based on the EPD from another
country where data was available
Global The median value based on relevant EPDs worldwide

If the user has selected a country which does not possess its own port, the
calculator will generate a comment under “Remarks” column in the international
transport for marine.

13
Step 4: If the emission factor value reflected does not accurately represent the
emission factor of the selected material, the user may input an emission factor
value based on his or her own knowledge or information source in the “User
Defined Emission Factor” field. In this instance, the user will be prompted to attach
supporting documents for this value under the “Supporting Documents” field in the
right most column of the excel tab.

Through the previous action, the label in the “Value Used” field will also change to
“User defined”.

14
 Note: For users who wish to manually input the emission factors for the component, the user can
define it in the “User defined Emission Factor” field. This value will take precedence over the
emission factor value generated by the calculator under the “Emission Factor” field in the
computations.

Step 5: Next, the user can input the quantity of the material component used in the
structure under the “Quantity” field.

Step 6: The user may also change the unit of measurement by selecting the unit
from the dropdown list under the “Units” field.

Note: The calculator uses mass units for all data inputs for materials. If the user has data in
volumetric units, average densities may be used to convert the material quantity to mass units.

15
This completes the necessary information required for the computation of the
material embodied carbon.

Note for cement: If other materials besides ‘Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC)’ is utilized,
‘Ordinary Portland Cement’ must be selected and the share of OPC in the cement used should be
used to compute the quantity of OPC used. For example, if the cement is 25% fly ash and 75%
cement by mass, both ‘Fly Ash’ and ‘OPC’ should be selected under the Cement category. If 100
kg of cement was used, the user should input 25 kg for fly ash and 75 kg for cement.

Step 7: International Transportation - Marine

Once the country of origin is selected, the calculator will also show the
transportation distance for the material component being imported from its origin
to Singapore.
If the user has selected a country which does not possess its own port, the
calculator will generate a comment under the “Remarks” column. The country
indicated after the dash “-” is the country that has the nearest maritime port which
was used in the calculations.

16
The user may proceed to input/select the required fields for the transportation
aspect of the material carbon emission. The user may select the relevant mode of
marine transportation for the specific material from a dropdown list under the
“International transport – Marine” field.

Four types of international sea transport may be provided, depending on the

material. Their definitions and use are shown in the following page:

17
 Vessel type Description Common materials
Container Most common for long distance Plastic, glass, tiles
international sea transportation for
most materials
General Cargo Common for international sea Plastic, glass, tiles
transportation for both long and short
distance
Barge Common for short distance sea Plastic, glass, tiles
transportation
Bulk carrier Common for large bulk materials Steel, Cement
Note: The emission factors used in the calculator for the different vessel types were obtained from
the IMO 4th GHG study published in 2020.

Step 8: If the sea distance shown is not representative of the actual sea distance
travelled, the user may input the actual sea distance travelled in the user input field.
This value will take precedence over the value reflected in the “Transport distance”
field. The user will be prompted to provide supporting documents for this value in
the “Supporting documents” field on the left most column of the excel tab.

18
 Step 9: The user will also have to input information for international and domestic
land transportation.
The user may select the type of freight vehicle from the dropdown list for
international road transport for the selected material.

A description and examples of the types of goods vehicles is shown below:

Freight vehicle type Description Examples
Light goods vehicle Light commercial vehicles Van, Pickup truck, passenger-cum-
goods vehicles
Heavy goods vehicle Truck Goods lorry
Very heavy goods Large trucks, trailer Ready mix concrete trucks, concrete
vehicle panel / prefab concrete transport

Step 10: The user may then proceed to input the international road distance
travelled in km and provide the origin of the factory and port destination postal codes
for verification.

Step 11: The same steps can be taken to input the values for road transport in
Singapore. Domestic transport refers to the transportation of the material from the
port in Singapore to the construction site.

19
Note: If a material is transported from multiple locations (e.g. multiple batching plants), the user
many use the following guidelines to compute the distance for the calculator:

Simple average distance – design and tender phases

Weighted average distance – when more data is available on the actual transportation of goods
from each batching plant

The weighted average distance, where the distance is weighted by the mass of material
transported, provides a more accurate distance for the computation of embodied carbon from
transportation. This is recommended if data is available. The equation for the weighted average
is shown below. mi stands for the mass of material from location i and di stands for the distance
from location i to the construction site.
∑𝒊𝒊 𝒎𝒎𝒊𝒊 𝒅𝒅𝒊𝒊
∑𝒊𝒊 𝒅𝒅𝒊𝒊

20
Step 12: As mentioned earlier, the “Supporting Documents” field at the right most
column provides a summary of the supporting documents that are required. Under
this field, a remark reflecting either “Material” and/or “Transport” in highlighted colour
will be shown.

21
Construction Phase
The construction phase tab allows for the estimation of the embodied carbon from the
construction phase that arises from the usage of various utilities for both the Super
and Sub structures.
Step 1: The user may input the quantities of various utilities used in the fields in blue,
for both structures. If the user is unable to differentiate between utilities used for the
Super and Sub structures, the user may enter the total utilities used in the Quantity
(Total) column and ignore the Quantity (Super structure) and Quantity (Sub structure)
columns.

Note: There are 3 different scenarios the user may encounter when providing the quantities of
various utilities used in the fields in blue.

Scenario 1: The user keys in values for both the Super structure and Sub structure fields. The
user will notice that the total quantity field of the utility row will be greyed out. The embodied
carbon will be computed based on the values from both the Super structure and Sub structure.
(See below illustration picture 1)

Scenario 2: The user keys in the values in the total quantity field for the utilities. The user will
notice that both the Super structure and Sub structure fields of the utilities row will be greyed out.
The embodied carbon will be computed based on the values from the total quantity field instead.
(See below illustration picture 2)

Scenario 3: The user keys in values for both the Super structure and Sub structure fields, as well
as the total quantity field . The user will notice that all the mentioned fields will be grey out, and
there will be a red indicator showing “Check input(s)”. (See below illustration picture 3)

22
Step 2: Under the unit column, the user may change the relevant unit measurement
for utilities such as Diesel and Petrol.

23
Step 3: Under the Emission Factor column, the user may enter the relevant value
associated with the alternative power system (Do note this emission factor shall be
based on a “cradle to gate” evaluation).

The Global Warming Potential, or emissions, (in kg CO2 equivalent) will be computed
and shown in the columns “GWP (kgCO2e) (Super Structure)” and “GWP (kgCO2e)
(Sub Structure)”. The supporting documents that the user may be required to submit
are shown in the last column.

24
25
Results Charts & Tables
The following two tabs of the embodied carbon calculator consist of the results charts
and results tables. The “Results Charts” tab presents the results and analysis in easy
to visualise charts. Detailed results can be obtained from the “Results Tables” tab.
Results Charts:
Five sets of charts are shown.
The first charts show the overall results for the embodied carbon of the building project
by phases in life cycle assessment (A1-A5) and structures.
This chart shows the user inputs for Super and Sub structures including the structures
in the A5 construction phase separately.

A second chart shows results in terms of total quantities including the A5 construction
phase.

26
The second set of charts provide the detailed breakdown of the embodied carbon by
materials, phases (A1-A5), type of transportation and type of utilities.

27
28
The third set of charts are pareto charts. The pareto charts arrange the results of the
embodied carbon analysis from the largest to the smallest contributor and these are
reflected in a bar chart. In the same chart, a cumulative curve is also plotted, and it
reflects the cumulative sum of the contribution of each identified component to the
total building embodied carbon as a percentage. A line is drawn at 80% to indicate
the point at which the cumulative chart achieves the 80/20 pareto principle.

29
Pareto charts are also provided for materials excluding cement, concrete, aggregate
and steel. This is so that the user may visualise and identify materials that are high in
embodied carbon besides the key construction materials of cement, concrete,
aggregate and steel. A percentage is shown in these charts to highlight how much
these remaining sources of embodied carbon contribute to the overall embodied
carbon.

30
31
The fourth set of charts are hot spot analysis charts. Each chart also arranges the
results of the embodied carbon analysis from the largest to the smallest contributor
and can be used to identify the key sources of GWP, or emissions, for further analysis
or for emission reduction measures. Note that the pareto chart shows the results for
each component from the A1-A3 phases, while the hot spot analysis shows the results
for each component from the A1-A4 phases. The reason is that the focus of the hot
spot analysis is on the identification of key materials (A1-A4) that contribute to the
building’s overall embodied carbon.

32
33
The last chart summarises the types of data sources used in the analysis and can be
interpreted together with the pareto charts. The share of each type of data source is
shown in the bar chart. A user may use this information to improve on the data
collection process.

34
Declaration
Lastly, the user of the embodied carbon calculator will arrive at the last tab –
Declaration Tab.

The last few actions required by the user for Green Mark 2021 Whole Life Carbon
Section Declaration are to refer to the Missing data (as highlighted below) for any
required data in the calculator which have been neglected, followed by filling up the
particulars of the user for declaration purposes.

35
36
Glossary
ECC – Embodied Carbon Calculator
EPD – Environment Product Declaration
GGBS - Ground granulated blast-furnace slag
GWP – Global Warming Potential
LCA – Life Cycle Assessment
OPC – Ordinary Portland Cement

Legend
Legend
For User to input/select
Auto generated value
To provide Supporting Documents (if any)
Do not input any data

37