India is one of the world’s fastest-growing economies. Driven by the aspirations of its people, the Government of India is working hard towards achieving Viksit Bharat—developed-nation status—by 2047. This ambition is expected to accelerate construction across the infrastructure and housing sectors, increasing demand for energy-intensive materials and, consequently, higher embodied carbon emissions.

At the same time, India has committed to achieving net-zero emissions by 2070. The construction industry must therefore reduce embodied carbon while continuing to meet the requirements of relevant Indian standards.

Because embodied-carbon assessment in the Indian construction sector is still at a nascent stage, the Low Carbon Construct Forum (LCCF) has developed an indigenous web-based tool: the LCCF GWP Calculator. The calculator currently applies only to Concrete, covering both ready-mixed concrete (RMC) and site-mixed concrete (SMC).

Available at https://gwp.lccf.in, the calculator is intended for three broad user groups:

• RMC producers: Commercial or captive batching and mixing plants that produce ready-mixed concrete.
• SMC users: Contractors producing conventional site-mixed concrete.
• Consultants, architects, contractors and clients: Professionals and authorities who review or approve commercial proposals from RMC producers, SMC producers or contractors.

To calculate the embodied carbon of concrete, the LCCF GWP Calculator uses global warming potential (GWP) factors from the 2017 IFC-EU database, which now requires updating. The tool’s materials database also includes third-party-verified Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) and GWP values published by some leading cement manufacturers.

LCCF encourages other material manufacturers to publish similarly verified data. Until more current values are available, the IFC-EU GWP factors may be used to make like-for-like comparisons of embodied carbon across concrete mix designs.

The web-based calculator has been validated by the LCCF team; but remains a Pilot version. It will be refined in response to user feedback and updated as new third-party-verified GWP factors become available from producers of concrete ingredients.

Fresh- and hardened-concrete performance and cost remain paramount. However, LCCF recommends that sustainability also be treated as a key decision criterion, with preference given—where all technical requirements are met—to the concrete mix design with the lowest embodied carbon.

For more information and your feedback, please write to info@lccf.org.in