Managing Embodied Carbon in Africa Through a Carbon Trading Scheme

Embodied carbon (EC) in buildings continues to attract attention and, as such, measurement and management of EC in buildings are also becoming prominent. However, much of the management of EC has hitherto focused on the developed world. In this chapter, we demonstrate the use of a disaggregated mathematical model to show how, in the context of Uganda, the acclaimed global carbon management scheme of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) can be extended to buildings. We argue that a CDM initiative generated from this idea can lead to a project-level carbon trading scheme that can be used to manage EC, moreover, cost effectively. We demonstrate that 20ktCO2 could be avoided annually if the suggested CDM is implemented in the capital city of Uganda, Kampala. Using the example of Kampala, we show that carbon trading is a viable strategy of delivering sustainable low-EC buildings in Africa.