A Global Database on Whole Life Carbon, Energy and Material Intensity of Buildings(CarbEnMats-Buildings)

Abstract Globally, interest in understanding the life cycle related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of buildings is increasing. Robust data is required for benchmarking and analysis of parameters driving resource use and whole life carbon (WLC) emissions. However, open datasets combining information on energy and material use as well as whole life carbon emissions remain largely unavailable – until now. We present a global database on whole life carbon, energy use, and material intensity of buildings. It contains data on more than 1,200 building case studies and includes over 300 attributes addressing context and site, building design, assessment methods, energy and material use, as well as WLC emissions across different life cycle stages. The data was collected through various meta-studies, using a dedicated data collection template (DCT) and processing scripts (Python Jupyter Notebooks), all of which are shared alongside this data descriptor. This dataset is valuable for industrial ecology and sustainable construction research and will help inform decision-making in the building industry as well as the climate policy context.