Evaluation of daylighting strategies based on their embodied carbon emissions: a first methodological framework and case study

The impact of daylighting strategies on a building’s carbon emissions have so far been assessed mostly based on the building’s use phase and their resulting operational benefits, overlooking embodied carbon emissions of material production, construction, maintenance and end of life. This paper proposes a new methodological framework that combines different techniques including sensitivity analysis, target cascading and a method called Design Space Exploration. The framework was tested on a case study, namely the winning entry of Solar decathlon 2012, to evaluate daylighting strategies based on both daylight availability and embodied carbon emissions. . This study allowed to show through a formal process that while choices made on window head height, glazing type, interior surface reflectance and window-to-wall ratio (WWR) basically define daylight access potential, they only have a minor impact on embodied carbon emissions.