RAIC: Whole Building Life Cycle Assessment Workshops

Assessing embodied carbon impacts throughout a building’s life cycle is a necessary step in a
shift towards regenerative and lower carbon design. The Canadian built environment is the third-highest source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and there is an urgent and critical need to accelerate the knowledge, skills and competencies of professionals who design Canada’s buildings.

To address this need, the RAIC is partnering with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) in a one-year rapid-deployment project to train members of the Canadian architectural community through a high quality, hand-on case study-based Whole Building Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) curriculum.

Whole building LCA provides an estimate of the total GHG emissions associated with a building. This includes emissions due to operations and defined as the emissions associated with the extraction, manufacturing, transport, installation, replacement, and the end of service life for products and materials used in a building, which constitute a significant proportion of a building’s whole life carbon emissions.

The RAIC is proud to collaborate with Ha/f Climate Design to organize the in-person workshops, followed by an online option, on LCA sessions for practicing industry professionals. Following a theory-based lecture on LCA, embodied carbon, and related methodologies, participants will engage in a hands-on workshop, learning the basics of how to perform an assessment in small groups. The workshops will be held between September 2024 and May 2025 in various locations across Canada including Ottawa, Toronto, Saint Andrews, Winnipeg, Regina, Vancouver, Calgary, Halifax and Montreal.

Workshop Locations

• Ottawa, Ontario, September 20, 2024 | 9:00AM – 5:00PM
• Toronto, Ontario, October 3, 2024 | 9:00AM – 5:00PM
• St. Andrews, New Brunswick, October 8, 2024 | 9:00am – 5:00pm
• Regina, Saskatchewan, October 11, 2024 | 9:00am – 5:00pm
• Winnipeg, Manitoba, October 16, 2024 | 9:00am – 5:00pm
• Vancouver, British Columbia, February 3, 2025 | 9:00am – 5:00pm
• Calgary, Alberta, February 6, 2025 | 9:00am – 5:00pm
• Halifax, Nova Scotia, May 22, 2025 | 9:00am – 5:00pm
• Montreal, Quebec, May 31, 2025 | 9:00am – 5:00pm