Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Carbon budgets and embodied carbon limits presuppose an account of what the existing building stock embodies and has yet to emit, but none exists at German national scale. Here we resolve all 19.4 million German residential buildings individually, estimating their embodied carbon emissions from real geometry and age-specific constructions over life-cycle phases A1 - A3, B4 and C3 - C4. Embodied carbon averages 6.3 kg CO 2 e per square meter net floor area per year. Most of the stock's remaining embodied emissions are incurred at end of life rather than through component replacement, making lifetime extension the strongest embodied carbon lever. However, retrofitting it to an advanced standard at 2 % of floor area per year would emit 287 to 559 Mt CO2e depending on the materials used, which is 59 to 114 % of the German building sector's embodied carbon budget for 2025 - 2045. Decarbonizing the existing stock must account for the carbon a retrofit costs.
Source: Research Square
Institution: Technical University of Munich
Language: English
Subfield: Environmental Engineering
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7223966311