Concrete Embodied Carbon Footprint Calculator

Concrete is one of the main contributors to the embodied carbon footprint of most buildings and infrastructure assets. It also offers one of the top quick win embodied carbon reduction measures. The specification of greener concrete mixtures has great potential to reduce the carbon footprint of construction. 

Materials such as ground granulated blast furnace slag (ggbs) and pulverised fuel ash (pfa), have cementitious properties and can be used in a concrete mixture to reduce the amount of cement. Ordinary Portland Cement, or OPC as it is also known, has a higher embodied carbon than ggbs or pfa. The material pfa is also known as just fly ash.

Embodied Carbon Database

Circular Ecology has created an embodied carbon calculator for concrete, as part of the free embodied carbon database for materials known as the ICE database. The ICE database was originally created as a research project at the University of Bath by Dr Craig Jones, Circular Ecology, and Professor Geoffrey Hammond.

The latest version of the ICE database, V3, was updated by Circular Ecology and was co-funded by Heathrow Airport, the Rail Safety and Standards Board and the Environment Agency. 

There is an excel version of the carbon calculator available with every download of the ICE database.

Embodied Carbon Calculator for Concrete

There is also an online version of the calculator available on this page. 

The below calculator will model the embodied carbon of up to three concrete mixtures.

An example of the embodied carbon results is shown below:

Low Carbon Concrete

To see the full emissions factors, assumptions and calculations, download a copy of the ICE database. The excel version of the concrete embodied carbon calculator is included in the freely available ICE database download file.

Using the Concrete Embodied Carbon Calculator

Simply enter details of the concrete mixture, in terms of the material constituents per m3, click calculate, then download the optional pdf report. 

If you are working on a specific building, it may help to have the concrete design certificate from your concrete supplier. This will tell you exactly what is in your concrete per m3, in terms of cement, CEM I, ggbs, pfa, aggregates, additives…etc. Using the actual concrete mixture increases accuracy of embodied carbon assessments considerably.

View an example of the pdf output, embodied carbon concrete report.

The boundaries of this calculator is cradle to site. It can also model cradle to gate, if you set the transport distance to site as zero.

The concrete embodied carbon calculator is below:

To reset the calculator, just refresh the page.

Embodied Carbon Model for Concrete
This carbon calculator can be used to calculate the embodied carbon of concrete mixtures. Boundaries are cradle to gate plus the option of transport to site.
1. Concrete Mixture

Cement replacement materials, such as GGBS and fly ash, can be selected by:

  1. Selecting a cement type with the correct blend in section 1b; and by
  2. Adding additional cement replacement material in section 1c.

Do NOT double count the cement replacement materials

1a. Mixture Name
Long names may not display well on the result graphs.
Enter mix Name
Mix 1
Mix 2
Mix 3
1b. Select cement type
If you want to model cement types not covered by the built in list, then enter a CEM I and model the correct blend of cement replacements in section 1d
SELECT cement type
If you selected custom cement data in the drop down above, you will need to complete this section. Otherwise, move to the next section.
Enter EPD result, GWP - Mod A1-3, kg CO2e per kg cement
1c. Enter quantity of above cement type
Cement, kg per m3
1d. Enter any additional cement replacements
Do not double count if already included in the cement type selected in 1b (e.g. additional material not covered by the cement type selected in section 1b)
GGBS, kg per m3
Fly ash, kg per m3
Limestone fines, kg per m3
For information: Total cementitious content
Cementitious materials, kg per m3
0.0
0.0
0.0
of which:
Cement
0.0 %
0.0 %
0.0 %
GGBS
0.0 %
0.0 %
0.0 %
Fly Ash
0.0 %
0.0 %
0.0 %
1e. Water to cement ratio
Water
For information: Water content
Water, kg per m3
0.0
0.0
0.0
1e. Admixtures
Average Admixture kg per m3 concrete
Air entrainers kg per m3 concrete
Hardening Accelerators kg per m3 concrete
Plasticisers and Superplasticisers kg per m3 concrete
Retarders kg per m3 concrete
Set Accelerators kg per m3 concrete
Water Resisting Admixtures kg per m3 concrete
For information: Total admixtures
Total admixtures, kg per m3
0.0
0.0
0.0
1f. Aggregates
Total coarse and fine aggregates, kg per m3 concrete
For information: Total materials
TOTAL material, kg per m3 concrete
0.0
0.0
0.0
2. In-situ or precast
SELECT concrete type
Mix 1
Mix 2
Mix 3
3. Steel reinforcement
3a. Amount of steel
Amount of steel kg / m3
Mix 1
Mix 2
Mix 3
For information: Volume of steel
Volume steel
0.0
0.0
0.0
3b. Type of steel
Here you can select which embodied carbon factors to use.
Select factor
Mix 1
Mix 2
Mix 3
If you selected custom EPD results in the drop down below, you will need to complete this section. Otherwise, move to the next section. Do not include Mod D. Include Mod A1-3 only
Custom EPD data for steel GWP - Mod A1-3 - kg CO2e per kg steel
4. Transport from concrete producer to construction site
UK Averages:

Ready-mix / in--situ=11 km
Precast=95 km

Source: Mineral Products Association (MPA)
Delivery distance, from concrete producer to construction site - km
Mix 1
Mix 2
Mix 3
calculate
5. RESULTS - Summary Charts
A result graph of the three concrete mixtures is shown below:
5. RESULTS - Embodied Carbon
Embodied carbon of concrete per m3
Embodied carbon of concrete per kg concrete
Results - Contribution %
5. RESULTS - Summary Calculations
Concrete calculations - Embodied Carbon Contribution - kg CO2e / m3 concrete
download report
ICE (Inventory of Carbon & Energy) Terms of Use
TERMS OF USE

These are the terms of use for the Inventory of Carbon & Energy (ICE) database, which must be abided by:

  • The ICE database must not be distributed nor uploaded to websites without the written permission of the authors. Instead the link to the download website should be referred to, which will always contain the most recent version of the database, https://www.circularecology.com/embodied-carbon-footprint-database.html
  • The data contained within the ICE database may be used on projects and within carbon tools - so long as full reference to the database is provided and with a link to the download website to ensure readers can check for the most recent version of the ICE database
  • The ICE database shall not be reproduced, copied, distributed, published, modified or in any way exploited, in whole or in part
  • The disclaimer below shall be adhered to
DISCLAIMER

Whilst efforts have been made to ensure the accuracy of the information contained in the Inventory of Carbon & Energy (ICE), the content is subject to change and the authors and their affiliated organisations cannot guarantee its accuracy or currency. The right is reserved to make changes to the information without notice.

The information is consequently provided "as is" without any representation or warranty as to accuracy, currency, quality or fitness for purpose of any kind. You should independently verify any information contained in ICE before relying on it.

The authors and their affiliated organisations do not make any representation nor give any warranty as to the ownership of the copyright of any material forming part of ICE and does not accept any liability for any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential losses arising from the infringement of any third party rights in relation to any material in ICE.

Further Information

If you are interesting in finding out more about this embodied carbon tool for concrete, please download a copy of the excel version.

The excel version contains the full emissions factors, assumptions and calculations. It is available with the ICE database download, which is a free embodied carbon database for materials. 

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