Carbon calculus ECONOMY
LEGISLATION COVER STORY
New government insulation regulations for housing aren’t quite as green as it seems at face-value, new Unitec research shows. The government’s 2008 minimum standards for insulation in new builds was an integrated response to address climate change by reducing energy demands, yet construction experts were well aware it could have some unexpected costs in terms of carbon expenditure.
New Zealand’s Kyoto Protocol agreements, yet no-one had published a full life-cycle analysis of these changes. We felt this was especially pertinent given that New Zealand’s electricity comes largely from renewable sources,” says Birchmore.
“It’s broadly accepted that energy use falls by 30% in insulated homes, so this policy was used to help meet New Zealand’s Kyoto Protocol agreements.”
In order to capture the broader environmental consequences, Unitec’s Senior Lecturer in Construction Roger Birchmore and his student Jovan Andric undertook a study of the carbon payback over time. “It’s broadly accepted that energy use falls by 30% in insulated homes, so this policy was used to help meet
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“Insulation obviously has invaluable benefits to the health and wellbeing of people, though we came at it purely from a technical point of view. Our question was, if there was going to be a great expenditure of carbon at the outset, what was the payback? How long does it take to recoup carbon savings from reduced electricity usage?”