Impact of Location Selection on Whole Life Carbon of a Multi-National Manufacturing Facility

Duran, Ozlem; Fieldson, Rosemary

Abstract

Global companies locate new facilities to suit their market opportunities and budgetary costs,
however, with increasing expectations to cut emissions and with expectations to meet net-zero commitments,
selecting sites based on resulting whole-life emissions is becoming a realistic consideration for business decisionmaking.
This paper documents a series of scenario-based whole-life carbon modelling studies undertaken to review the
design and carbon emissions implications of geographical choices that a multinational manufacturing
corporation might consider when selecting locations for new product expansion.
Initially, a new UK-based manufacturing facility was modelled at RIBA stages 4 to 5, then the same production
line parameters were “transported” to five other plausible locations based on the company’s anticipated market
outlet for the product. The building was modelled with alternative key supply chain environmental product
declarations for embodied impact, considered energy performance expectations to meet local regulatory
mandates, solar power potential and grid energy mix.
Considerable variation was found to result over a 60-year design life depending on the choice of location for a
proposed new facility development. The findings will be of interest to businesses that wish to strategize energy
consumption and emissions globally and design teams delivering their projects

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (published)
• Conference Name: 8th International ICARB Conference on Carbon Accounting
• Start Date: Sep 25, 2023
• End Date: Sep 26, 2023
• Acceptance Date: Jul 1, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Oct 1, 2023
• Publication Date: Oct 1, 2023
• Deposit Date: Oct 20, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 25, 2023
• Pages: 160-174
• Book Title: Proceedings Of the 8th International ICARB Conference on Carbon Accounting
• ISBN: 9781916187658
• Publisher URL: https://mosser.scot/ICARB2023/ICARB%20Proceedings_web.pdf