Origins of the ICE Embodied Carbon Database

Dr Craig Jones is an environmental consultant, specialising in embodied energy, carbon footprint, carbon offsetting and life cycle assessment (LCA). He wrote the first book dedicated to embodied carbon in construction and also led the technical development of an embodied water (footprint) database for materials.

The ICE database has been downloaded by over 30,000 professionals from around the world, it contains data for over 200 materials and is possibly one of the most used carbon databases in construction in the UK. It was created by Dr Craig Jones, as a researcher at the University of Bath whilst working for Professor Geoff Hammond, at the Sustainable Energy Research Team (SERT).

The first version was released in 2005, 13 years, before the 2018 IPCC report was released which was a turning point for discussions on climate change. The Engineering Club to share how the ICE database was first envisaged, how they found information for it, how they could see how important it would be and what is the future for environmental assessment of design.