The conversation around sustainable construction in Greece has traditionally focused on one crucial element, energy efficiency. It makes sense. Reducing the electricity and heating oil needed to run a building saves money and lowers emissions immediately.
However, as our buildings become highly energy efficient, a new challenge emerges. We are ignoring the massive hidden climate impact of the building sector, the materials themselves.
To truly decarbonize the Greek built environment, we must move beyond just measuring how a building runs and start measuring how it is built. This means understanding Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and recognizing the profound significance of material selection in minimizing a building’s total CO2 footprint.
To understand the total environmental impact of a building, we must look at “Whole Life Carbon” which is split into two categories:
1. Operational Carbon.
The greenhouse gases emitted during the buildings useful life from heating, cooling, lighting, and powering appliances.
2. Embodied Carbon.
The greenhouse gases emitted to mine, manufacture, transport, and assemble the construction materials (concrete, steel, glass, insulation). It also includes end-of-life demolition and disposal.
The crucial realization is this
Embodied carbon is spent before the first tenant ever walks in the door. Once the concrete is poured, that carbon is locked into the atmosphere.
In Greece, the regulatory framework is heavily skewed toward Operational Carbon. The Regulation on the Energy Performance of Buildings (KENAK) is the law of the land. It dictates minimum energy class requirements and mandates insulation, efficient boilers, and renewable energy integration. The output of KENAK (the Energy Performance Certificate or PEA) gives us a figure in kgCO2/m²/year related to energy use.
KENAK has been highly successful in improving the energy profile of Greek buildings. However it is blind to embodied carbon. It does not care if you use sustainable timber or high emission steel, provided the thermal transmittance (U-value) of the wall meets the requirement. It calculates the operational savings of thick insulation but ignores the massive carbon cost of manufacturing that insulation.
As Greece pushes toward Nearly Zero Energy Buildings (NZEB), operational emissions are shrinking. Consequently, embodied carbon from materials is rapidly becoming the dominant slice of the building’s total carbon pie over its life span.
Since Greece does not currently have an established, mandatory national system for calculating total LCA footprint, forward thinking architects and developers must look to proven European methodologies.
A prime example of a mature, functional system is the Netherlands’ MKI (MilieuKostenIndicator or Environmental Cost Indicator).
What is MKI?
The Dutch system is unique because it translates environmental impact into a language everyone understands. Money Instead of presenting a confusing array of data points (kg CO2 equivalent, acidification potential, toxicity, etc.), MKI summarizes all these LCA impacts into a single monetary value representing the “shadow cost” to restore the environmental damage caused by a material.
How it works
A lower MKI score (in Euros) means a lower environmental impact. It allows a client to compare two different facade systems and see not just the financial cost difference, but the environmental cost difference side by side.
While KENAK is mandatory in Greece and methodologies like MKI are currently voluntary best practices for leading developers, comparing them highlights the gap in our current approach.
Feature | KENAK (Greece) | MKI (Netherlands Model) |
Primary Goal | Reduce Energy Consumption during use. | Reduce Total Environmental Impact over the lifecycle. |
Scope | Operational Phase only. | Whole Life Cycle (Cradle to Grave). |
Metric | kWh/m² and kgCO2/m² (annual). | Euros (€) representing total environmental damage. |
Focus on Materials? | Only their thermal properties (U-values). | Their entire production, transport, and disposal impact. |
Timing | Focuses on the 50 years of operation. | Focuses heavily on “Day 0” (construction) and end of life. |
The two systems overlap in the physical reality of the building. The materials you choose (assessed by MKI) determine the thermal envelope, which in turn dictates the energy performance (assessed by KENAK).
For example, choosing triple glazed windows improves your KENAK score significantly. However, an MKI assessment would reveal the high embodied carbon cost of manufacturing three panes of glass and heavy frames. A truly sustainable approach uses both lenses to find the optimal balance.
The critical link between European methodologies and any future Greek system is the European Standard EN15804.
EN15804 is the “recipe book” for how to calculate the environmental impact of construction products. It provides the core rules for creating Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) the “nutrition labels” for building materials.
How MKI adapts EN15804:
The Dutch system is a direct application of EN15804. It takes the raw data from EPDs (which are created using EN15804 rules) and applies weighting factors to convert that data into the single monetary Euro score. MKI essentially makes the complex data of EN15804 usable for decision making.
How KENAK relates to EN15804 (The Gap):
Currently, KENAK has almost no relationship with EN15804. KENAK software uses national databases filled with default thermal values for generic materials (e.g., “generic brick,” “generic concrete”). It does not pull specific carbon data from manufacturer EPDs.
The Future Path for Greece:
For Greece to evolve its system, it doesn’t necessarily need to copy the Dutch monetization model. But it must begin integrating EN15804 data. A future revision of KENAK (or a parallel regulation) should require that the materials specified in the energy study are backed by EPDs, allowing for a calculation of total embodied carbon alongside operational energy.
In Greece, we are masters of optimizing operational energy because KENAK forces us to be. But as long as we ignore the materials we build with, we are fighting climate change with one hand tied behind our back.
Until a national LCA framework is established, leading Greek professionals should voluntarily adopt European methodologies like MKI or use LCA software to evaluate their material choices. Every cubic meter of low carbon concrete chosen over standard concrete, and every sustainably sourced timber beam chosen over energy intensive steel, is a measurable victory in the fight against global warming.
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