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Carbon Management in the Built Environment – book review

Carbon Management in the Built Environment, written by Rohinton Emmanuel and Keith Baker, is the complete introductory textbook covering low carbon management for the built environment. Carbon Management in the Built Environment integrates climate change science, design, materials science, and policy into a classroom friendly text.



Why does this matter to those of us interested in tropical forest conservation? It is because many of the components of the built environment are extracted directly from or produced by embodied energy from tropical forest landscapes.



Carbon Management in the Built Environment opens with a discussion on the global context of climate change then follows with a specific description of how this context relates to the built environment. The final section teaches tools used to manage carbon footprints within the built environment.



Each chapter includes easy to use sub-headings organized around key Learning Outcome Statements. Formulae are presented simply so that anyone can use them in a professional setting for footprint management.



One novel idea would be if the authors of Carbon Management in the Built Environment could include a comprehensive case study focusing on a publicly traded stock of a company that builds and operates and manages buildings. This could integrate the reporting requirements of both the Carbon Disclosure Project and Forest Footprint Disclosure Project within a carbon footprint analysis of this real estate company’s activities. This would be useful as we could understand better how tropical forest footprints are related to the carbon management of our built environment. While this idea may seem abstract at first glance, cities have carbon footprints through the sourcing of their timber and fiber-stock materials for building’s construction and operation and management.



With up to 90% of all energy use—primary, secondary, and final energy—occurring in cities, Carbon Management in the Built Environment is a book that presents ideas that all of us who are interested in tropical forest conservation and mitigating climate change need to be familiar with.







How to order:




Carbon Management in the Built Environment

Publisher: Routledge

Author: Rohinton Emmanuel and Keith Baker







Gabriel Thoumi, CFA, LEED AP, is a natural resource scientist and financial consultant.







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