Are office fit-outs relevant for climate change?

About half of all carbon emissions worldwide are produced by the building industry, of which 28% come from building operations and 21% from new construction.

Steel, reinforced, concrete, aluminum, glass, etc. used in the construction of a building’s structure, mechanical systems and exterior walls

The lifecycle of office interiors produces about 190 kg of CO2e and 77 kg of waste per square meter in many of the largest markets in the world.

Regardless of location, top-tier office towers that draw dependable, multi-national tenants have an average lease and interior life of roughly 8.5 years. Due to fast changes from growth, shrinkage, or adaptation to new workplace requirements, office leases and the life of their interiors are only good for 2–3 years for less reliable tenants.

If the lifecycle of an office interior is assumed to be 2.5 years, the number of interior fit-outs over the building’s lifespan might reach 20. That means that while an office building is in use, the interior changes 20 times!

The significance of those emissions is brought into stark relief when the carbon emissions from the construction of office interiors are calculated over the design lifespan of a building:

• At best, carbon emissions from tenant fit-outs are equal to those of the building’s core and shell as a whole.
• In their worst cases, they are almost four times higher.

This is a harder question, as operational emissions are location dependent, and as most grids are slowly including more renewables.

When excluding the embodied carbon of interiors, operational emission catch up with the emission from the core & shell after 20 years.

However, average data now shows that the operational emissions are equal to non-operational / embodied emissions after 37 years of the building’s lifetime.

If you are an interior designer, or an architect working in office fit-outs, here’s a few ways you can reduce the emissions:

1. Use less materials
2. Re-use / Re-purpose materials
3. Specify low-carbon & with high recycled content materials

Researching sustainable, low-carbon and healthy materials is not easy. At 2050 Materials, we are working on making it as simple as it can possibly become.