Chandrakumar CMcLaren SJDowdell DJaques R2025-07-012025-07-012019-09-05Chandrakumar C, McLaren SJ, Dowdell D, Jaques R. (2019). A top-down approach for setting climate targets for buildings: The case of a New Zealand detached house. Iop Conference Series Earth and Environmental Science. IOP Publishing Ltd.1755-1307https://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/73137Climate change mitigation requires the construction of low/zero-carbon buildings, and this is a challenge for designers. The use of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) provides useful information to support eco-efficiency improvements and therefore, to reduce the climate impacts of building designs. However, it does not provide information about whether a proposed design aligns with achieving the global climate target of limiting global warming to below 1.5C or 2C. This study, therefore, introduces an LCA-based top-down approach for setting climate targets for the whole life cycle of buildings in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. It involves assigning a share of the 2C global carbon budget for 2018-2050 to a country, to the construction sector of the country, and finally to a building. The approach includes a stock model that accounts for the projected growth in the number of buildings and associated climate impacts in a country up to 2050. The proposed approach was applied to a detached house in New Zealand, the most common residential building type in the country; it was found that the climate target of a New Zealand detached house over a 90-year lifetime is 71 tCO<inf>2</inf>eq. This modelling approach has potential to guide designers and other interested stakeholders in development of building designs enabling the building sector to operate within a selected global climate target (such as the 1.5C or 2C target).(c) The author/shttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.enconference10.1088/1755-1315/323/1/0121831755-1315CC BY 3.0c-conference-paper-in-proceedingshttp://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000562136800182&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=c5bb3b2499afac691c2e3c1a83ef6fef