Harshi Bamunuachchige presents at The Kandy Conference

Harshi Bamunuachchige, a student at the University of Salford, was invited to present her paper at the International Conference On Sustainable Built Environment in Sri Lanka between 20th-22nd December 2024. As she came to the end of her PhD journey, this was an exceptional way to showcase all the work she had done towards researching mitigating embodied carbon.

Harshi's paper was titled: 'Mitigating Embodied Carbon: Carbon Assessment Challenges and Methods in Smart Building Construction in the UK.' You can read her abstract below:

"The UK built environment sector is confronted with significant challenges in reducing greenhouse gas emissions to meet the net zero 2050 targets. Currently, the built environment sector accounts for 40% of carbon emissions globally, about 39% of UK carbon emissions stemming from construction activities. Despite ongoing efforts, carbon emissions levels in the built environment sector remain exceedingly high. Therefore, in order to address this issue, this research paper aims to identify the carbon assessment challenges in the built environment sector and mitigate embodied carbon in building construction. A systematic literature review will first be employed to investigate the critical challenges to balancing environmental management in smart building construction. Subsequently, an expert interview will be conducted to gather deeper insights. Reducing embodied carbon emissions in the construction of smart buildings presents a variety of intricate issues. These include rising building prices, a lack of low-carbon materials readily available, insufficient government regulations, opposition to novel building materials, a scarcity of experts with an environmental conscience, and a failure to include low-carbon elements in early project stages. These problems are made worse by the absence of rigorous carbon management strategies and environmental impact studies at the project’s inspection. The literature suggests the drivers for effective embodied carbon management within the UK built environment sector to tackle the identified challenges. The recommendations are expected to mitigate the negative environmental impacts and drastically cutting embodied carbon emissions. Therefore, this study demonstrates that the built environment sector can make significant progress towards a low-carbon economy and the achievement of net zero 2050 targets."