Methodological approaches to assessing the carbon footprint of buildings.

Sustainable development of the human environment is inextricably linked with environmental issues, energy and resource conservation. An important factor in solving these issues on the world agenda is the reduction of gas emissions into the atmosphere, especially carbon monoxide emissions, the value of which is called the "carbon footprint". Buildings, structures and other capital construction projects are indirect emitters of carbon emissions. During their life cycle, they consume energy resources, the production of which is associated with the emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Thus, a carbon footprint is formed during the life cycle. An important scientific and practical challenge is to reduce this carbon footprint. To account for the size of carbon footprint of buildings during the life cycle and to solve the problem of reducing it, it is necessary to create appropriate techniques, as well as their application in modern software products. Currently, the creation of such methods in the Russian Federation is under development, existing methods in world practice are based on European methods and databases. Russia has technological features of the production of energy resources, building materials, products and structures, on top of all of this the forming of construction and installation works and methods of operation of buildings. All this makes methodological adjustments to the calculation of the carbon footprint. In this article, the authors consider the existing methodological approaches to assessing the carbon footprint of the life cycle of buildings abroad and in Russia and come to the conclusion that the main methodological approach to its assessment is the life cycle analysis (LCA) method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]