260 - Fire safety in a carbon budget with Cecilia Wetterqvist and Axel Mossberg

Fire Safety Meets Carbon Budgets

Wojciech Wegrzynski 0:00

Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Fire Science Show. We're not always in a creative freedom when we design buildings to do whatever we like. There are constraints, and, uh, lately in the construction industry, a lot of those constraints come due to the climate emergency and the need for more sustainable built environment. Um, the currency of that is CO2 emissions, and in the last 20, 30 years, a lot of the system has been framed in such a way that it really is a currency. You're given a budget, and you have to design your building within the budget. That's it. A boundary condition, a hard constraint that, you're not able to jump over because the drivers, the financial drivers of the market will, will not allow you. And here we are with fire safety, and, uh, fire safety obviously is a cost. If you put your sprinkler system into the building, it's gonna cost you some sort of CO2 emission. That's kind of obvious. The problem is the system does not recognize that it also gives you something back. It doesn't recognize the benefits of those fire safety features. and that's a massive problem because suddenly our systems are just a part of the cost and not a part of the profit in the building. And that, that leads to very, very challenging situations which as you can imagine, we are discussing in this podcast. Uh, today I have invited two researchers from Sweden, Cecilia Wetterqvist from Lund University and Bengt Dahlgren Fire Research, and Axel Mossberg, also from Bengt Dahlgren Fire Research, who have been recently researching a lot on that. How do we make fire safety and, uh, sustainability, broadly speaking, work together? How do we put fire safety in the language of, sustainability? How do we translate from safety to CO2 emissions and back forth? How, how can we actually include for the risks of fire in the life cycle a-analysis of a building? And in this podcast episode, we also cover a lot of the basics of these things. Uh, so the green certificates, the stages of the building, when this-- is it this calculated, how more or less it's calculated, how it's approximated. Uh, so you have a better idea on, on how those carbon budgets are made and where do they come from. Uh, and as we collectively understand this better, there's a good chance we can include, uh, you know, some of our thinking into the process, because currently there, there's none, and it, it, it leads to very, very challenging situations where we basically sacrifice safety on, on the altar of, of carbon emissions, which I, I don't think I, I agree with. I, I don't like this. I, We need to do better, and I'm really happy that th- these guys are, are trying to do better and, uh, there's a whole lot of an interesting discussion around this subject, which I hope you will enjoy. Let's spin the intro and jump into the episode.

Sponsor Message From OFR Consultants

Wojciech Wegrzynski 3:30

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What Sustainability Really Means Here

Wojciech Wegrzynski 4:31

Hello, everybody. I am joined today by Cecilia Wetterqvist from Lund University and Bengt Dahlgren Fire Research. Hey, Cecilia.

Cecilia Wetterqvist 4:39

Hello

Wojciech Wegrzynski 4:39

Welcome to the podcast. And, uh, together with her, uh, Axel Mossberg from Bengt Dahlgren Fire Research. Hey, Axel.

Axel Mossberg 4:45

Hello. Thank you very much

Wojciech Wegrzynski 4:47

Uh, got tired by elevators and now doing, uh, sustainability, I guess

Axel Mossberg 4:51

Yeah, exactly. The elevator, uh, since we published a new standard on, uh, elevator evacuation in, in Sweden, it's, uh, it's not that big of a question anymore. So now I have to do something new.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 5:02

in that case, uh, uh, congratulations. But, now, uh, I guess you moved, uh, a larger fundamental problems of, uh, civil engineering, and Cecília, you've been researching those, uh, for quite a while. I've invited you, you here to the podcast to discuss, uh, the interlink between fire safety and some drivers that are, I think, are very important uh, for our discipline for civil engineering. That's sustainability, carbon, uh, footprints, uh, the whole process of doing life cycle analysis, et cetera. I, I know you've been investigating that in depth, recently. So, uh, m-maybe, maybe let's start with the, with the big question. If you had to define what, what sustainability is supposed to give to our buildings, like, it, it's a big word, you know, and a lot of people like to use it. Uh, a-a-and I wonder, like, what, what, what's the core o-of the concept? Why, why do we want our buildings to be sustainable? I'm throwing air quotes right here.

Cecilia Wetterqvist 6:01

that is a big question, and, uh, well, I always used to start with exactly what you kind of mentioned. That when you talk about sustainability, you have to frame it what you are actually are talking about. 'Cause sustainability and fire safety and fire resilience is a lot of different things. Um, at the moment, we tend to talk about, uh, a lot about the climate changes 'cause that's where the industry are at the moment. But we mustn't forget that fire safety, also has to do with the social aspects, uh, whether you feel safe in your building and whether you can evacuate. Uh, is it equal for everyone who is in the building and stuff like that, and what happens, uh, with the community in case of a fire and things like that. But that's, that's one topic. That's not the, the topic that we are kind of driving into or jumping into today. So we are mainly talking about CO2 emissions at the moment 'cause that's where the industry is and, and CO2 emissions has become almost a currency, so we talk about it like i-in terms of a budget. And in order to deal with that, we have to make sure that the things that is important for fire safety and fire resilience also can be included

Wojciech Wegrzynski 7:07

Yeah, but, excuse my French, but like taking it down to level of CO2 is bullshit, like to me. Like s- sorry, that, that, that's my honest opinion. I th- there's so much more into a sustainable, sustainable building than just how much CO2 it costs. I, I understand that that's like calculatable, like y- you can get a number and you can, drop it. But, uh, CLT elements across, uh, Pacific Ocean, to build a sustainable building on another continent from a factory in middle of Europe, that doesn't sound very sustainable to me. Uh you know, and, and there's like a l- a lot of those things that, uh, to, to get it right, there's so many more elements. But I, I guess you work with, with what the industry works, right?

Cecilia Wetterqvist 7:48

Yeah, and we totally agree with you, and that's also one thing that we got annoyed with when you start, start to talk about the life cycle, and you choose to talk about system boundaries that doesn't really include everything that happens during a life cycle within a building, and then make decisions for the building, based upon that kind of view. that's also something that, that we thought needed to be addressed somehow.

Axel Mossberg 8:12

Yeah, and I think, uh, I mean, as you talk, now we're, uh, heading down to like CO2 emissions right away, but as you say, there's a lot into, uh, sustainability. But, but when we talk, both when we talk sustainability and when we talk CO2 emissions, I guess the boundary conditions that we talk about are very important. And as you say, like are, emissions, uh, produced in other countries, for example, are th- are those included? 'Cause otherwise we, uh, we lose a lot of the meaning of doing, the calculation, uh, to start with.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 8:42

Mm-hmm.

Axel Mossberg 8:43

But, but that's a nice link, uh, as you, uh, started out with the social sus- uh, sustainability. It's a nice link from evacuation elevators to

Cecilia Wetterqvist 8:52

There we have it.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 8:54

that, that, that's my job. That's my job.

Cecilia Wetterqvist 8:55

Yeah.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 8:56

uh, no, no, but I, I'm serious. Like, for me, like, if I have a building which is very easy to change its way of use, for example, it's an office in 10 years, it can be school in 20 years, it could be an apartment building. If I build it in such a way that it's easy to, to switch the, the, the form without a huge investment, for me, that's a sustainable building because, you know, it addresses so many societal-- potential societal needs. i-if it's easy to fix, if it's easy to take down, if, i-if it makes space easy to, to, to replace, for me, that's a sustainable building. And on contrary, your world's greenest, uh, beautiful, uh, skyscraper with a negative footprint, if it burns down and, uh, you know, the, the consequence, you have to take it down and build a new one in its place, not very sustainable if you ask me. Like, that, that is my opinion, of course. I'm not an expert i-i-in, in, in this world of calculations, and my colleagues in the office who are, are probably angry with me right now

Cecilia Wetterqvist 9:52

No, but th-that's correct. And that's also actually something you have to think about, uh, in some of the green certificate systems that you are supposed to be able to change things and take them down and move them and, uh, thoughts on reuse and stuff like that. So

Wojciech Wegrzynski 10:06

W-

Cecilia Wetterqvist 10:07

are learning

Wojciech Wegrzynski 10:08

yeah, which is a now interesting link to fire. Because from this perspective, a fire must be difficult to in all of that. I mean, if you put your safety systems into the building, they come with a badge that says this many tons of CO2. That's easy to add to the equation. But how the hell do you calculate the benefits?

Axel Mossberg 10:28

Yeah, exactly. I, I mean, one-- that's one of the key issues, uh, that we think is... Because if we just, uh, take a few steps back, we have a legislation in Sweden, uh, and in more countries, I guess, I'm not sure in how many countries, but that we have to declare our CO2 emissions when we s- uh, have new buildings, as Cecilia said earlier. There's boundaries to those CO2, uh, what we have to calculate, and in Sweden, we calculate, like, the construction phase and certain transports and stuff like that. But now there's a, a proposal that we should include the, more phases of the building's life cycle and also more systems. So previously, we just, uh, calculated the structure and stuff like that. Now we have to include the installation system, such as sprinkler system, for example. So there is a proposal in Sweden on how many CO2 emissions per square meter you have to calculate if you introduce a s- a sprinkler system. But if we don't look at the positive effects, uh, of, uh, the sprinkler system, like how do the-- it actually, reduce this expected CO2 emission from a fire, there is a very big risk that we, s- do a suboptimis- optimization of the, of the building. So we might actually, choose to not include the sprinkler system due to CO2 emissions because they-- we, in the calculations, they produce CO2 emissions, as you said. And, uh, when we do that, we might actually increase the, uh, CO2 emissions from the buildings during the life cycle, the expected CO2 emissions from the, from the building, because we have a fire risk which is not included in the calculation. So we think it's very important that that factor is, is, is

Green Certificates Leave Fire Out

Axel Mossberg 12:08

included

Wojciech Wegrzynski 12:08

I, I'm, I'm looking forward to move to that part of the discussion, but I think because it's such a, like a, a wide and interesting topic, and I have not, uh, been covering that so much in the, in the Fire Science show, I would like to clear three, three, three things in a structured discussion before we move forward. So one, I would love to hear about the green certificates that Cecilia already mentioned, like what are they and how they drive our stuff. I would like to discuss the, decision-making process in the design phase, so how actually those requirements transfer into, into decisions in different design phases. I would really love to dig into, uh, what's the most complete life cycle, uh, phases, uh, of the building that we can get to. Um, and let's, let's perhaps start with the, uh, certificates un- unless you think it's in a bad order, but I would like to start with the, with the certificates because it's something that came to the market, uh, I don't know, when, when did they came to the market? In '90s?

Cecilia Wetterqvist 13:02

Yeah, some, some, yeah, around between the '80s and early 20,

Wojciech Wegrzynski 13:07

The w- w- what was driving the, the emergence of those, of the-- Like first let's, let's define. The, the main ones I understand are BRI, EAM, and LEAF. But, uh, what was the driver of that? Was this the, the UN report by Bartland or, or what, what, what was it?

Cecilia Wetterqvist 13:24

Yeah, from the beginning, uh, one could say that, uh, it's the Brundtland Report kind of started the sustainability journey of the building industry, I would say. and as a result of that, several different, uh, green certificate sy- systems emerged. So LEED and BREEAM are two quite big ones. We have, two others in Sweden that we work with. Uh, they are in, in Swedish, so, we call them Miljöbyggnad and

Wojciech Wegrzynski 13:49

Hmm?

Cecilia Wetterqvist 13:49

that's other things, and there's a lot of different systems in different countries. And the way you work with them is that you-- Well, in the end, they are supposed to help you to make better decisions when it comes to certain indicators that you have decided upon from the beginning. Uh, and then you can get different, ratings. Um, some systems work with numbers and some with colors, um, and some with like gold, silver, bronze, and platinum, and stuff like that. And I would say that the industry thinks that they help them make better decisions. It's good. It's better to have a certificate s- system than not, but it's also quite expensive 'cause you actually have to pay in order to get the stamp on your building. So, more and more projects are working by following them, but not actually, Or what to say?

Axel Mossberg 14:40

Get the

Cecilia Wetterqvist 14:40

certificate. Get the certificate, cause it's connected with, um, with money. Uh, and also it's used by the, banks and stuff like that in order to get better loans for your building projects. It's easier to communicate if you have some kind of green certificate system. Um, so it's a way to support that kind of questions as well.

Axel Mossberg 15:01

correct me if I'm wrong here, but, uh, 'cause you know it much better, but isn't it also like the EU taxonomy has like at least partly, incorporated much of the like green building certificate stuff into-

Cecilia Wetterqvist 15:15

Absolutely

Axel Mossberg 15:15

regulation?

Cecilia Wetterqvist 15:16

So we are seeing a change when it comes to whether people think it's, it's that important or not. Um, so now we have other legislations that are actually laws, and that's a different thing. Uh, a green certificate system, it's, it's something you can choose on by yourself. Uh, but when you have some of these questions, supported by laws, then you help the industry in a better way.

Axel Mossberg 15:39

You can't choose anymore.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 15:40

I, I, I see a political link to the Brundtland Commission and, you know, this, uh, definition o-o-of, of what the future world should look like and that we should reflect on how are we using the planet, et cetera, uh, some other agendas that, that are forming. And obviously, you know, behind the big ideas like that, there's also a lot of money flowing. So if If people invest in a lot of those technologies that are kind of respond to that requirement, uh, they want those technologies to be used, and what's a better way to, uh, get your innovation running than enforcing it by a law, right? That's a, that's a great way to enforce it. And also, you know, it, it resonates with the legislators and that those things get implemented. European Union, Union is an interesting ecosystem because, uh, and I had an episode with Ceretta from the Joint Research Center where we've discussed a little bit of that in relation to fire safety, not sustainability, but fire safety. Not everything is, is regulated by European Union. The building codes in general, the way how you build buildings, that's within, each country's individual of regime. EU cannot tell you how to build buildings in your country, you know? But if you want additional money coming from a specific directive, be it the climate directive, EPBD or anything else, Fit for 55 or green housing, wh-whatever initiative, then you have to conform to the, you know, rules of that, uh, of that program, and those come with a lot of those, uh, sustainability id-ideas hidden within them. also some of them are hidden within the EU, uh, single market regulations, which also is the case for fire safety. Fire safety is also kidden-- hidden within the, the fire-- the, the, the market regulations. So it's all like one ecosystem that keeps moving. But, um, in terms of green certificates, this-- I also see them a specific driver, especially in larger developments like big offices, in general, big, large, expensive buildings, uh, high-level residential buildings. They would also, you know, show how, how good class they, they, they have. to best of my knowledge, and I'm not an expert in those systems, I'm just, you know, an annoyed, uh, user of those systems, uh, but, uh, to the best of my knowledge, they don't explicitly consider fire safety that much in them

Cecilia Wetterqvist 18:09

No. Um, not at all, to be honest, in a way. But, um

Wojciech Wegrzynski 18:13

In, in a way they're, they're counterproductive. They make me put, natural openable windows atop of my skyscrapers, which drives me crazy. Just as a side note.

Axel Mossberg 18:21

Yeah.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 18:22

natural ventilation gives you bonus points, you

Axel Mossberg 18:24

Yeah. Yeah, but, and I guess, I mean, there's a lot of, uh, different, uh-- I'm not an expert as well, but, but there's-- I mean, they have acoustic requirements and stuff like that, like, um, building, uh, different requirements that are relatable, like, or, uh, has a similar place in the building processes as fire safety. But fire safety is, generally not, not included, uh, for some reason.

Cecilia Wetterqvist 18:46

With that said, some systems have included, um, risks from the outside, like, um, forest fires, for example.

Axel Mossberg 18:55

But that's a Swedish system, right?

Cecilia Wetterqvist 18:57

Uh, that's BREEAM.

Axel Mossberg 18:58

Yeah. Okay. That's BREEAM. Oh.

Cecilia Wetterqvist 19:00

So, but that hasn't anything to do with the, the specific design. It's just that you have to think about what-- if something happens outside, do you have to, do something in order to, to handle that?

Wojciech Wegrzynski 19:11

But it's not that you can change your class from C to B because you have just, uh, provided excellence fire safety in your building. That's not gonna get you there.

Cecilia Wetterqvist 19:21

No, not

Wojciech Wegrzynski 19:22

Which

Cecilia Wetterqvist 19:22

at all. No

Wojciech Wegrzynski 19:22

a pity. We need a fire EAM that we're gonna torture all the acoustic people with, uh, you know. Uh, th- this is the fire points you need to get. We perhaps should, should actually do that.

Axel Mossberg 19:34

I, I think that would be a, a great addition to, to the systems. I mean, uh, there's, uh... If you get points for like acoustics and lighting, environment, and stuff like... I, I mean, of course, those, those stuff are very important and you-- I guess the, the trap here is-- or the trap, the, the point of those are that you, like, experience them every day, but you should as well get points for like, uh... Because most work with points, right? You get certain number of points for different... So, so I think that fire safety should generate points in some way. I g- I mean, and it should be, should be, uh, it's, it would be better

Cecilia Wetterqvist 20:14

Mm-hmm.

Axel Mossberg 20:15

Uh, and reasonable

Wojciech Wegrzynski 20:16

indexing methods in fire are difficult because, like, there's so many factors that go into, what is fire safety and they're not, like, easily... Like, I take three points from here, I put them there, it's the same I got. I think, uh, was it Vasilis who wrote a PhD on that? I think, I think that was, uh, Vasilis from, from, uh, Building Safety Regulation in the UK, uh, in, at Edinburgh. But anyway, that, that we're, we're, we're getting sidetracked. Phases

Axel Mossberg 20:43

Hope that's

Early Design Choices Lock Everything

Axel Mossberg 20:44

enough

Wojciech Wegrzynski 20:44

because those, those, uh, certificates, uh, you have a, a client, you have a designer, they-- I think they want, they know they want a specific certificate. No one wakes up at the end of the construction and says, "You know what? We should get a certificate." I think it's a, it's a part of the whole process that, that is there from the very early days of the process. Uh, w- tell me about the design phases and the decisions that being done at those design phases and how they translate both into the sustainability aspect and the fire safety aspect.

Cecilia Wetterqvist 21:15

well, we see, like, green cer- certificate systems are absolutely, as you're mentioning, a constraint from the beginning. so that's something that affects, uh, other decisions that's, that you make during the process. Uh, but what we've seen and talked a bit more about in our papers is the, the regulations that basically come from, from the EU, uh, the climate declaration things. Uh, when you actually, pinpoint certain decisions and, and decisions regarding the frame, for example, what can you use? What kind of frame can you use for your building in order to fulfill a CO2 emission requirement? That's a really big decision, and that's something that you sometimes has to take, um, from the beginning in order to actually be able to create, um, a project at all. Um, I have one example, where we saw there, there was a competition in order to build on a s- certain, place. and within that competition, they had set a, a bar for the CO2 emissions, and that was-- that's a quite a new way of building. Uh, you, you don't know that much a- about how different decisions actually affect the CO2 emissions yet. Uh, but you make these decisions and the limits-- You put the limits really early. and in that specific case, that's, affected what kind of decisions you could make later on. So when you ta-- started to talk about the details that you talk about in the end of the project, uh, you couldn't really make the decisions that you wanted 'cause you were constrained by this, um, CO2 emission bar from the beginning. So even though we thought that some, some design decisions would have been better when it comes to fire safety, in the long term, point of view, that didn't fit within the budget, so we had to make other decisions. That still complies with the regulations, but m- maybe wasn't the best decisions for that specific building

Wojciech Wegrzynski 23:04

Are, are, are there tools that help you make this very first rough assessment at such an early stage? I guess, like in the first moment, you know, I need like approximately 20,000 square meters and it's gonna have roughly 10 floors because the footprint of my, of my, uh, land is this, and, and there's like a number artificially made of CO2 budget. Like are-- Can you at this stage already like think, "Okay, if I go concrete, that's gonna be this many thousand tons. If I go timber, it's gonna be this many thousands. If I go hybrid steel timber, it's gonna be..." Like h-h-how do you do that at, at such an early stage where it doesn't even exist yet?

Cecilia Wetterqvist 23:42

Yeah. And, well, there, there are, um, calculation programs that you can use, to help you, uh, with that kind of decision. So you kind of put in all the things that you've mentioned already. and we've also seen that the, the industry have started to understand some things, 'cause in the beginning when you made these, calculations, you didn't even add the gypsum board that were necessary, uh, when it comes to, uh, timber structures. Now, now the industry have learnt that, okay, we have to think about that as well. So the difference now isn't that big, from what you have to- actually have to build. But, you make a lot of decisions really early on, uh, without, um, involving a design team, and, and then just kind of hope that you can, uh, fulfill that, uh, later on

Wojciech Wegrzynski 24:26

With hope. That's...

Cecilia Wetterqvist 24:29

best guesses.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 24:30

Yeah, I, I, I wonder, you know, how many buildings end up in a really situation. Uh, this first, uh, assessment was perhaps too optimistic, and now we're super constrained b- by, by a number that we've made up from the start, you know?

Cecilia Wetterqvist 24:46

Yeah. Uh, and, well, we wonder that too. And especially if you start to put a, a bar that actually, uh, is driven by law, if that's too tight, because of, results that you've seen from the industry early on, 'cause that's the way we have to-- The way we work with this now, we make calculations, and we, uh, represent them. But we don't always follow up, as you say, the actual end result. Uh, and i-if we start to have too tight budgets for our buildings, that's gonna affect how we can work with fire safety design in the buildings. Yeah.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 25:22

this, c- c- going into the, the CO2 budgets, your experience, are they v- very explicit, like this many tons, or they are like kind of conceptual, we just want a carbon neutral building as, as like with something around zero being the target or someone actually sits down and calculates, okay, for buildings of this class, we shouldn't get like this much per square meter? I don't know, like

Cecilia Wetterqvist 25:47

Um, well, my experience is that they are quite expensive, so it's, it's a number. Um,

Axel Mossberg 25:52

in Denmark, there is a, a number, and it's, pushing down, and that's the, that's the proposal in Sweden as well, that we will have a-- We have different ways of calculating it, so we have different numbers. Uh, but, currently the Swedish legi-legislation is that we just have to declare it. So, so we're-- The, the, the Swedish industry is currently learning, like how much CO2 emissions does each building has. We have had to declare it for a few years now. So when we build a building, we just send in like, "This building is this much carbon footprint," to the municipality. And now they're-- the proposal is that we-- they, they've added a limit, so it's gonna be a limit from twenty-thirty, I think. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then it's gonna, go down, uh, a few years. After a few years, it's gonna be down by this much, and then a few years later, it's gonna be down a bit, bit more and, and so on. so the start limit is quite high. and l-like, uh, I think above average, uh, of the buildings that are currently being built, but then it's gonna be, uh, go down like, uh, in a few years. But, uh, but there are initiatives like, uh, the Reduction Roadmap, which is, uh, a Danish initiative from the, from the start. Uh, and-- but it spread to Sweden as well, and I think it's in more countries probably as well, which is like you had-- y- they think that, uh, the proposal from that, where-- which has a lot of industry compliance, a lot of industry partners are-- have signed the Reduction Roadmap, and they want to reduce the carbon footprint, uh, to follow the Paris Agreement, and that would mean that we have to reduce the, the building carbon footprint vastly in, in the next coming years. So, so that would be a very strict, uh, carbon budget. Uh-

Wojciech Wegrzynski 27:40

Yeah, th-th-that's interest-- I, like I wish, uh, they had a uh, part of the budget allocated to fire safety and didn't cut that. Like, often on, on the construction, uh, you know, projects we hear from someone higher end, uh, "Oh, we don't save on safety. We don't save money on safety. Safety is, like, always a justified cost." So maybe safety has a justified CO2 cost, like, you know, some- somehow. Uh, I mean, I, I feel those constraints are very, very tight and, I don't buy that. Like, I, I, I don't buy that at this level,

Cecilia Wetterqvist 28:13

Yeah.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 28:14

Um, but, but anyway, y- we, we just covered the pre-design phase where the general idea is shaped and, and, you know, your rough of, uh, is chosen. then you go, like in your paper, there's a schematic design phase, design development phase, construction design phase. I guess the more technical and detailed you get, you, you, you are less, uh, flexible with what you can do within the carbon budget that you ha- you have been allocated, right?

Cecilia Wetterqvist 28:41

Absolutely. And also what happens is that, um, a lot of the decisions, that comes from th- this CO2 emission, um, budgets, um, they also tend to drive the industry in order to use materials that are more, uh, climate friendly.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 28:59

Mm-hmm.

Cecilia Wetterqvist 28:59

And they quite often come with a higher fire risk, uh, or a, uh, or a higher consequence in case of a fire. So that's also something we w- we need to handle somehow. And the, the industry is working so fast 'cause they, they really-- we-- they are really pushing these questions and the development of new products, is happening really fast. And we don't, uh, we don't really know what happens with the different, uh, products and materials over time, for example. And if we keep on building these things in too fast before we know too much, and if we don't have the ability or the possibility in order to put in the fire safety systems that we think is necessary to handle these kind of new risks, then we really end up with a lot of difficulties for the, for the final building

Hidden Fire Tradeoffs In New Materials

Wojciech Wegrzynski 29:47

Uh, c-can you give, give some e-examples on, on, on how those trade-offs would look like? So, do you-- like, okay, we've covered changing a concrete building to a timber building. That's obviously a new way of h- of fire hazard, but, uh, something in that line, but deeper in the process

Cecilia Wetterqvist 30:04

we could talk about, uh, installations that are combustible.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 30:09

Okay

Cecilia Wetterqvist 30:10

I think that we, we do know how to handle them, how to build them in. how to protect them. Uh, but we don't necessarily think about the small details. So what happens with the, with penetrations? Do we have the correct systems in order to seal things? and these-- that kind of details, uh, can be difficult to, to spot and also difficult to think about.

Axel Mossberg 30:32

And, I mean, uh, just, uh, talking about that, So smoldering is kind of a new thing- Mm-hmm in my, in my experience. Like, we are still, uh, kind of exploring how smoldering should be regulated. Should it be regulated? Should it not be regulated? And how should it be regulated if, if, if it's regulated? And, there are, I mean, a lot of interesting research on that area, uh, currently, but that, that's an aspect that is currently not included in most regulations in, in my experience. And that, that could affect, like, bio-based, uh, installations- Yeah and stuff like that

Wojciech Wegrzynski 31:03

i-i-in insulations, there's one interesting caveat of, of insulating everything which, which I've learned working in car parks, which I thi- I f- as a fire scientist, I find it interesting. You know, if you have a, a concrete ceiling, bad because of acoustics, it's usually bad because of, of heat losses, et cetera. There's plenty of reasons why you should cover this ugly CO2-producing carbon, bad, uh, concrete slab. But the thing is, it's also a great heat sink in case of a fire. Like a lot of heat is lost to the, to the concrete ceiling. if you insulate that ceiling, you suddenly lose the heat sink, which was a significant contributor, and now you have a much stronger re-radiation to the fire environment around you. So you're actually kind of making fire easier in that space. Like, and, and it doesn't have to be combustible ceiling, it's just a well-insulated ceiling that already promotes those effects. And, and if you run a, a car park, uh, CFD studies and you play with the ceiling materials and you change from very strong heat sink, which is a concrete slab, into very well-insulated, um, almost adiabatic material, you can see dramatic difference in the outcomes of that, of that simulation within the same space. So it, it, is not included anywhere in the, in the, in the analysis because there's simply no Excel, uh, cell to account for that, and there will never be because it's such a, like, high-level, uh, in-interaction. But again, for, for me, it's something that, that changes the outcomes, and I would highly prefer in many cases a exposed concrete ceiling, even if it's worse for some of the objectives. It just helps with, with, with, with my own. Um, in your paper, there's also things like, uh, floor plans and room designs and the of architectural design. Is this a part of the l- uh, of the carbon consideration as well? I don't know, a trend to build more open spaces with less partitions or perhaps a different trend?

Cecilia Wetterqvist 33:10

Oh, that's a good question. Uh, but I would say that that's not, not only because of sustainability, but, as we talked about before, it's definitely a question when it comes to, uh, possibility of flexibility and of-

Wojciech Wegrzynski 33:23

for, for me, for me that, that is a key. per- perhaps let's, let's move into life cycle because now we were talking about the design phase. we mentioned CO2 budget and CO2 costs of everything. the cost like the initial cost or the whole true costs and budget? Is, is it like the initial budget or is it lifetime building budget?

Axel Mossberg 33:45

uh, it's different for different, uh, countries and different system. It depends on how you regulate it. In Sweden, we currently just regulate, uh, the-- we only regulate, like, the, the carbon footprint in the construction phase,

Wojciech Wegrzynski 33:58

space.

Axel Mossberg 33:59

and w- then we split it for the expected lifetime of the building, which is fifty years in Sweden. So in Sweden, we have to calculate for fifty years of life cycle for a building.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 34:08

much, to be honest

Axel Mossberg 34:09

No, that's... And it's b- it's been highly criticized, and, uh, it's a very interesting factor a-also regarding fire safety because if you prolong the lifetime of the, uh, the life-- or the expected lifetime of the, the building, it's also gonna be more prone to, uh, fire. I mean, the longer the building stands, the more you would expect it to burn, uh, or the, the higher the statistical, uh, probability of it burning will be. And that would also increase the, the importance of using, uh, of including fire safety in the LCA calculations. But there are also m-- I mean, there's also many other factors that, that would be, uh, that promotes a longer lifetime of the building. Fifty years is not that much, as you say.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 34:52

I work with tunnels. For me, tunnels are immortal.

Axel Mossberg 34:55

Hmm.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 34:56

if you have a technical society and you build them a tunnel and they got used to the tunnel, they're never gonna get rid of the tunnel. They're like, whatever it takes, they're gonna have the tunnel operational.

Cecilia Wetterqvist 35:07

Yes.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 35:07

like, I, I can be wrong, don't quote me on that, but I think the average, average life of tunnel, railway tunnel in Germany is above 100 years already.

Axel Mossberg 35:16

Yeah,

Wojciech Wegrzynski 35:17

because everything that was built in 19th century is still operational or most of that.

Cecilia Wetterqvist 35:22

yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we're talking about 100 or 120 years when it comes to tunnels. Um, yeah

Wojciech Wegrzynski 35:26

Uh, w- that's our design assumption right now, 100, 100 to 120, that's like where, where we start, but I, I claim they're immortal. Like uh, in 120 years there's, there's gonna be a commission that's gonna say, "How do we, you know, keep this tunnel running for the next 100 years?"

Cecilia Wetterqvist 35:40

I see

Wojciech Wegrzynski 35:40

a- and we also, you know, in, in Poland we have a big, uh, topic of these, uh, big block buildings, you know, the, the, the communist time era type of buildings, '70s, '80s. Uh, so they would be approaching their 50-year potential end of use, uh, date right now, and they're doing pretty well. And we're talking about really bad communist architecture, and they're still standing, you know. And they have them in Berlin. In Berlin, they have them for 70 years, and they're

Cecilia Wetterqvist 36:07

Yeah.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 36:07

standing, and they're, like, still populated, they're still on the market. So, uh, 50 years is, is, It's, it's like a very safe assumption, let's just say, but doesn't give you the, the whole image. Um, in my opinion, it's not about years per se, it's more about how many times you have to change stuff in the building, you know? Because there's gonna be stuff that you have to replace every 10, 15 years. There's gonna be stuff you have to replace and there's gonna be stuff you perhaps touch once every 50 years.

Axel Mossberg 36:39

Mm-hmm.

Cecilia Wetterqvist 36:39

Yeah

Wojciech Wegrzynski 36:41

like you get two of those 25-year refurbishments or one 50-year refurbishment and five 10-year refurbishments. But if the building live- lives 100 years, you significantly increase the amount of times you have to interact with the building and, and, and its core, right?

Cecilia Wetterqvist 36:58

Absolutely Definitely And also something you have to think about that actually affects the life cycle is how you have to maintain things within the building. And that's also something that affects the fire safety systems.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 37:11

Mm-hmm.

Cecilia Wetterqvist 37:12

and when we start to,

Wojciech Wegrzynski 37:13

much

Cecilia Wetterqvist 37:14

yeah, when we start to include that in our calculations, we also might end up having discussions and debates reg-regarding, for example, um, a fire alarm system. If we say that it's a very good thing for this building, we think it's necessary, but then get questioned in terms of, okay, but how much CO2 emissions will it cost us to take care of this system? Um, oh, we think it's too much. We don't think it fits. Do we really need to have it? Uh, and if we then have a legislation that kind of open up for us, uh, engineers to make the best decisions and not be specific, uh, in everything, then we also might end up having discussions with regarding things like that

Wojciech Wegrzynski 37:55

Uh, and if you flip the question, if you don't maintain some of the non-fire features, you also increase the fire risk

Cecilia Wetterqvist 38:04

Absolutely.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 38:05

I- i- is, uh, okay, uh, going back to life cycle. So, so w- what are the specific phases, I guess, the, the pre-design and, and this conceptual stage we've covered as one stage? W- what, what follows? What, what is typically considered in an LCA analysis?

LCA Modules And Building Lifespan

Cecilia Wetterqvist 38:21

Uh, well, it's that, um, it's that phase basically when, when you build your building and the products you use, uh, within the building and how the products have been produced. So you're also supposed to think about, um, how your concrete has been produced, for example, and how you transport it. Uh, you mentioned that before. You are supposed to include that kind of trans-transportations as well. and, uh, that kind of covers what we call for module A in the life cycle analysis.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 38:46

Hmm?

Cecilia Wetterqvist 38:46

But what, uh, in the real life cycle, uh, analysis and what we, also are going to be forced to make calculations for is also what happens next, like the module B. it's when, when you use your building, what happens during, your use of your building. And then, then you talk about, um, the, the energy use, for example. That's a very big, um, a, piece of... Well, a big chunk in that, uh, phase, uh, but also questions regarding maintenance. Uh, and then you talk about, uh, the, the module C when you actually think that y-you have reached the end of life for your building, when you're supposed to take it down and be able to move it, um, and reuse as much as possible.

Axel Mossberg 39:29

And then there's a module D as well,

Cecilia Wetterqvist 39:30

right? Yes. In module D, you, you make calculations in another kind of way. Uh, I don't know the name in English at the moment. Sorry for that. But it's basically, uh, where you try to put things that doesn't fit, uh, within your system boundaries for your other modules.

Axel Mossberg 39:46

I never understood that much.

Cecilia Wetterqvist 39:48

No.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 39:48

No. That's fine. But, but okay, this, uh, this, uh, progression from module A, uh, produ- product and construction stage, B use,

Cecilia Wetterqvist 39:57

Mm-hmm.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 39:58

end of life, if after 50 years you figure out it's gonna be a great office, that apartment building, and you just, you know, all the interior and then it becomes an office, you never transfer to the end of life because you're not demolishing it, you're, you're refurbishing. So it's kind of the still in the use stage, right? But

Cecilia Wetterqvist 40:16

know. Would it be-- Yeah. Uh, I guess it wouldn't be a new construction phase. It would be a, just a change of the in-use- Mm-hmm offices.

Axel Mossberg 40:24

Yeah.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 40:24

because, uh, how can you, uh, expect such a thing when you're building a building? Like, what someone's gonna like to do with it in the 30, 50 years? So, uh, it's like, uh, you cannot say, "Oh, we are offsetting a lot of carbon because someone can turn it later to an office." Or you cannot also say, "Oh, it's gonna cost a lot because it's gonna be very hard to turn this into an office." So it's... But, but, but the reality is, look, like, there's not that many buildings that are being, uh, immediately, demolished. If they are, it's, it's because of the land value. but, uh, we tend to reuse a lot of our buildings, and especially in, cities where you would have an older building stock and a lot of that would go into historical preservation authorities, and you're not even allowed to do that. that's a reality that, that, that we're in. So I, I feel like the further you, you go into that, the more a hypothesis it becomes, less a rigid, you know, uh, bill, this is how

Cecilia Wetterqvist 41:26

Yeah.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 41:27

cost

Cecilia Wetterqvist 41:27

Absolutely. But

Wojciech Wegrzynski 41:27

right?

Cecilia Wetterqvist 41:28

also why we haven't, uh, been forced to do, uh, calculations within the module B and C. and we won't have limit values for them either 'cause they're... No, no, that's not in the budget. Uh- Not yet. Not

Wojciech Wegrzynski 41:36

So that's not in the budget

Cecilia Wetterqvist 41:40

yet.

Axel Mossberg 41:40

Anyway.

Cecilia Wetterqvist 41:41

No.

Axel Mossberg 41:41

Sorry. Yeah. Sorry.

Cecilia Wetterqvist 41:48

Yeah.

Axel Mossberg 41:48

Yeah. Yeah, then it's refurbishment. Yeah. No,

Wojciech Wegrzynski 41:50

your

Axel Mossberg 41:50

but I mean,

Wojciech Wegrzynski 41:51

f-

Axel Mossberg 41:52

I think that's a very interesting aspect because, uh, we also may-- had a, a research project on reuse, uh, which Cecilia and, uh, Lund University and RISE and, uh, others. So where we looked at-- Because reuse is also, I mean, driven by the carbon cost, because when you r-reuse things, you just, you don't have to account for the production of the thing, so you just account for the refurbishment. And when you reuse, uh, Cecilia's actually in a super interesting, um, uh, project in Sweden where we reuse, uh, the structure of an old IKEA store, and they just move it to another and d-do an apartment building with the concrete slabs from the, previous

Reuse Projects And Maintenance Surprises

Axel Mossberg 42:30

IKEA store. Uh, so they reuse the structure, uh, which is, uh,

Wojciech Wegrzynski 42:33

Do they transport the building in flat boxes?

Axel Mossberg 42:36

Exactly. And they only used, like, the little tool. Uh-

Wojciech Wegrzynski 42:39

Oh, that, that's interesting. Is, is it top secret? Can you talk more about that, Cecilia?

Cecilia Wetterqvist 42:43

Uh, no, yeah, yeah, it's definitely not top secret. But, um, It is a very interesting project, and it's a big gain for the project to be able to reuse, uh, parts of the construction, 'cause that's really the biggest, post when it comes to, uh, what costs, uh, when you build your building. It's the, it's the frame of a building. So if you can reuse parts for that, then it's awesome. But it is tricky. We, we aren't used to work with that, 'cause then you end up, like, really having like a, a Lego set, so you have your bits and pieces,

Wojciech Wegrzynski 43:16

Mm-hmm

Cecilia Wetterqvist 43:16

then you have to, design your building. But you have already decided on the load-bearing systems and how certain things can connect to each other and things like that, so you don't have any flexibility in terms of that. And that you-- well, kind of force you to make some other decisions later on that you aren't used to make, 'cause normally you can just make something a little bit bigger or a little bit thicker or something else. Uh, but in this case, that wasn't possible. So a lot of the design, uh, decisions that normally are a bit more open were really set from the beginning, and you have to work around that. And you learn a lot about that, uh, and from that, but it, it is, it is, it, it was a bit tricky.

Axel Mossberg 44:00

Mm.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 44:01

Okay,

Cecilia Wetterqvist 44:02

and especially in terms of time, just to-- in order when, when you finally build your buildings, for example, when you look at the walls, uh, and the, the, heights, ended up having a, um, a floor that wa-wasn't even. So everything you had to, to put inside had, had to be, uh, specialized for a certain height where it was. So that took time, for example. Uh, instead of just having the same measurements everywhere, you have to, uh, really work with different materials on sites in another way. Mm.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 44:34

Yeah, the, I guess that's the life of every single building being, uh, refurbished, working with the constraints. We've also built our fire laboratory into an old chemical plant with a lot of, you know, drawbacks from that original, uh, structure that was refurbished to fit the lab now. And, uh, I cannot tell you how many times I've heard we-- I wish we just took the damn factory down and just build it from zero, you know? Uh, even the simplest thing like the height of the facility you have, and you cannot fit the proper hood right now because it should be like one meter taller, and it's not very easy to raise your building one meter higher when it's already standing, you know, all, all the stuff you get. Uh, so I, I, I guess here, even though you're transporting and you're moving the, the parts of the building and using this as a, as a construction blocks for other buildings, these kind of, uh, boundaries propagate, uh, across the new projects.

Cecilia Wetterqvist 45:29

no, I could just add something else about that, that pro- that's also interesting. Uh, what happens when you don't think about, like, maintenance and what, what you actually have to

Wojciech Wegrzynski 45:39

Mm-hmm.

Cecilia Wetterqvist 45:39

do later on. We also reused glulam beams, um, that's had been inside before. Now, now we have them for structural parts outside of the building. Uh, and they are quite important for the evacuation routes, um, in this specific case. And it's going to be interesting to see whether we can keep them as long as we want 'cause we don't really, really know what's going to happen with them, in the new environment that they've been used in. Um, and that can be fixed. You can easily see if it doesn't work then, but then you have to make quite big changes for the building, and that's not sustainable if you have to change something already, like five or 10 years, um, after it has been built.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 46:19

Yeah, yeah, exact-exactly what I had in mind. Like, i-i-- and, and, and well, th-this kind of segues us to the, the, the, the fire because if fire happens, uh, and it damages significant part of the building, you are here again in the position where you have to replace a lot of stuff in the building, and that's a significant cost that was not calculated upfront. And here I understand comes your idea of o- of, of introducing, uh, fire risk assessment within the LCA analysis.

Turning Fire Risk Into CO2 Numbers

Wojciech Wegrzynski 46:46

So tell me the steps. How, how, how did you think about integrating fire into this type of, of, of analysis?

Axel Mossberg 46:55

So I think it was, uh, the project started, uh, was, uh, there was, uh, some-- There, there's been some previous, uh, projects on it or research on it from, uh, RISE and from, uh, uh, uh, Lund University as well, I think, and the other parts, uh, which has been like, uh, there's the fire LCA tool, which looks at like the including fire in the life cycle of-- But that's more connected to like specific products or specific, uh, elements. And since we, uh, the legislation was, uh, introduced or proposed in Sweden, we thought that, um, uh, that would be an important part, uh, 'cause on, on that note, like we discussed earlier, that the fire safety might be, um, like chosen not to include due to the carbon dioxide budget. we, we had a discussion and, they had a, like a, timber frame building, which, uh-- And we, we had a discussion on it, and I said, "Well, what about the sprinkler system?" And they said, "No, we, we decided not to go with the sprinkler system because what-- it was so, it's so, such a large part of the carbon dioxide budget."

Wojciech Wegrzynski 48:02

Wow

Axel Mossberg 48:02

Uh, and then you thought like, this is something wrong with the system. could that actually be? Uh, so, what we did then was we, we had the funding from the Swedish, uh, Brandforsk, the Swedish research agency for, or research fund for fire, and, uh-- or one of the Swedish research funds for fire. And, uh, yeah, well, we did a project on how would we-- how would you actually, translate the fire risk into something that could be included in the LCA calculations when they do like-- 'Cause the LCA calculation is done in a certain step, and in Sweden, you do it like, uh, it's-- Well, like in most countries, I think, it's, it's, uh, kilograms CO2, uh, equivalence per square meter of your building. And then you would have to ha- to translate the fire risk into that measurement. And, and I mean, that was the purpose of the project, and that was what we did. And, then we also tried to look at like different, protection systems like sprinklers and also different framing and different life cycles, as we already discussed, and stuff like that, so.

Cecilia Wetterqvist 49:06

Cause it's quite interesting when you look at the solar panels, for example. They are also something that kind of costs quite a lot to make, uh, in terms of CO2 emissions and stuff like that. but you know that you gain something from them when, when you use your building.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 49:21

Hmm?

Cecilia Wetterqvist 49:21

because of that, you actually don't have to include them at all in your calculations. You...

Wojciech Wegrzynski 49:26

don't-- They're exempt from

Cecilia Wetterqvist 49:27

Yeah.

Axel Mossberg 49:28

Yeah. In the Swedish system,

Cecilia Wetterqvist 49:29

yeah. Yeah.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 49:29

Okay. I'm growing, uh, more and more annoyed. I'm sorry. Not at you. Not at you. I'm, I'm annoyed

Axel Mossberg 49:35

I mean, that's, that-- I, I guess that frustration, uh, was the same, uh, we felt that same- Yeah. frustration, and that's why we, we thought that we need to, like, uh, really need to do something here, and we did the project, and then we also... The last time that there was actually a proposal on, on introducing limits of carbon dioxide in Sweden a few years back, and we kind of mobilized a lot of different fire safety organizations and companies around, like, leaving comments on it, uh, just, uh, with the basis on our research project. Now, now there's a new proposal, and they haven't listened to it, So we're gonna try to do, uh, the same thing again, I guess. But, uh

Wojciech Wegrzynski 50:10

mean, m-my annoyance large-largely comes from, uh, w-what I'm preaching around, uh, as myself, you know, that we need to be, respective to the objectives of the others. We have to listening to those voices and, you know, kind of play along and help them achieve, uh, fire safety through their objectives. So help someone get their objective done, but in a fire safe way. It's just there has to be like mutual willingness to do that. If there's none, then it's very difficult. I

Axel Mossberg 50:38

Yeah.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 50:39

we, we still, I guess, need to find a way, way to do that, and just-- it just annoys me in a way how obviously it is, you

Axel Mossberg 50:46

Yeah.

Cecilia Wetterqvist 50:46

Yeah

Wojciech Wegrzynski 50:47

I don't think you have to be fire scientist to understand that it, it's wrong and that the fire is gonna consume, uh, your building. It has not been sustainable that much. Um, in this analysis to show people how much of that, uh, life cycle cost the fire would add, how did you approach that? I seen your paper and interesting statistical analysis on, on the origins of fires, et cetera. Maybe you can, uh, explain a little bit about methodology. How did you end up, uh, you know, with the claims that you have?

Axel Mossberg 51:16

Of course.

Cecilia Wetterqvist 51:16

it's based on, on some, some assumptions.

Axel Mossberg 51:19

Yeah, it's a lot of assumptions. But, but I mean, in, in general, it's, uh, uh... We have a lot of, like, statistical data and statistical basics. So, in first, we, we looked at what kind of, like, uh, the Swedish-- we have a lot of Swedish agencies collecting, like, data on, for example, how much floor area of apartment buildings there is in Sweden. We have, we have a number for that, and we all-- because you have to report it. Uh, as soon as you build something, you have to report it, and we know what exists and so on. And once you know all the square meters of apartment, we also have a importance-- reporting system from the fire brigade that says that once there's a fire that they go to, they have to report it, and they report what kind of building it was. So we know how many fires in apartment buildings that occurs, and that means that we know how many fires per square meter apartment building we have. So that, that's the probability. We know the probability. And of course, it's a lot of assumptions, and there are some weaknesses in that. For example, a large apartment would have a higher fire risk than a small apartment, which is probably not true. Uh, but, uh, on average, the, the assumption shouldn't be that off, or, or it isn't because it's a statistical calculation. But, then you, then you would have had to assess the fire damage. So how much, uh, CO2 emissions do you, do you get from each fire? And then again, we looked at the fire brigade statistics, and they have a reporting system which is quite qualitative. So it's like, the fire was, uh, limited to the, the object of origin, the room of origin, the fire compartment of origin, the building of origin, or so And then we actually looked at a few fires, and we did a assumption on how much, like, if there's a, uh, if there, if, if it's the object of origin, how much, of the building area would be, uh, fire affected and have to be replaced? Because when you looked at emissions, you would have, like, three parts of the emissions. You would have the, uh, the fire emissions from the fire itself. So when something burns, it, it releases emissions. And then you would also have, one of the most important parts is that you would have to replace that. So if your sofa burns, you would have to buy a new sofa, and that's carbon emissions when you buy the new sofa. And if your surface line burns, you would have to, change your surfaces and so on. And then you also have carbon emissions from the fire brigade. When they come, they, they're gonna release carbon emissions during their,

Wojciech Wegrzynski 53:44

Oh, we need to get rid of them. The, the, there's carbon costs like, like

Axel Mossberg 53:47

exactly. So- Sorry so if we want want to reduce carbon emissions, we have to take away the five wheels. Yeah.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 53:52

how much water they waste on

Axel Mossberg 53:54

Yeah.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 53:54

fires. Like that's, uh, such a huge carbon emission.

Cecilia Wetterqvist 53:57

Can I just add two things regarding this? 'Cause I think we talk about assumptions now, and it's also extremely important to understand that the, the, the, the, the things that we compete with, like the CO2 budgets and the co- climate declarations, it's heaps of assumptions, uh, in that kind of calculations as well. So, no one can say that they have, like, the correct number of anything when it comes to these things. It's based on assumptions and best guesses, when it comes to environmental impacts, um, as well. And what I also wanted to add is what we talked about before is that you talked about it too, that the, the thing that we need to make others understand the importance of, our things as well. So it's about communication. So what we really tried to do was to use the same kind of numbers and the same statistics, that, others use when they make assumptions and calculations from an environmental point of view. So what happens if we use their da-data, uh, into our world, uh, in order to make them kind of maybe understand us a little bit better and show them that it has an effect.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 55:00

Yeah, yeah. No,

Cecilia Wetterqvist 55:01

Neat.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 55:01

that that's the reason for the kilograms of CO2, uh, being the, the main unit because it's understandable by the other stakeholders. That's, that's a very, very smart choice. I think using statistics is also a very s-smart choice at this scale of project. I would guess you could also go into some very in-depth probabilistic kind of modeling of a building to get those square meter numbers for a specific project if you wanted to, to do that in, in high, in, high detail. But overall, the statistical value has a good merit to that because it's very difficult to know question that if schools burn on average th-this rate, this school is not gonna burn at that rate because it's magical. It's like obviously--

Cecilia Wetterqvist 55:43

Exactly.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 55:44

wrong claim. I mean, statistics are, not a true image, of course, and it's not a prediction. It's a, it's a reflection of the past, but that's a good, uh, good starting point. And now I assume you had the baseline amount of, uh, probabilities for specific types of fires, damage associated to those fires recalculated into kind of units that, uh, the other, uh, part understands, and now you're testing solutions. So y-you mentioned sprinklers. Were you investigating other aspects like, I don't know, additional fire protection bars or some other stuff?

Sprinklers As Carbon Reduction Tools

Axel Mossberg 56:20

Uh, we have a- actually done that previously, but not in, in regards-- uh, not in this, uh, specific, uh, project. Uh, uh, in this pr- specific project, we j- we mainly looked at, the sprinkler systems because it's, it's, uh, as we, as we said, like, when we're looking at averages and, like, the whole building stock and stuff like that, it's easier-- it's easy to incorporate sprinklers, for example. It's, it's harder to incorporate fire compartmentation because then you would have to say, like, if, if we're gonna translate it into the concept that we did, you can do it, like, project per project. But if we would have to-- if we would l- want to look at compartmentation, we would have to say, like, "Okay, what happens if we, uh, reduce the compartment size for all buildings?" And that's not probably very likely, uh, in that sense. But you could use the same concept and the same method to evaluate. We have evaluated, like, fire compartmentation and different ways of protecting, uh, the structure, so, like, using a concrete beam, a steel beam, painted steel beam, or, concrete-filled st-steel beam, and stuff like that, uh, just to see, like, w- how does it, uh, affect the, the carbon footprint. But, but in this project, we, we mainly looked at sprinklers and, um, I think also, like, uh, heading in-- uh, before heading down that route, we might say that, uh, fire se- fire risk is a important factor for certain buildings, for, for example, for, like, commercial buildings, b-buildings with large fire compartment, compartments and a lot of fire load in them, which fire load translates to a lot of kilograms of CO2, both when, when it's being burnt and when it's being, replaced. So for those buildings, for co-commercial buildings, we, we found that, like, the, average value that, Boverket has, our municipality for building, uh, the, the average value for, uh, uh, the carbon emissions that they have for commercial buildings would ha- be forty percent higher, approximately if we include the fire risk. For apartment buildings, it's much smaller. It's, it's a few percent bes- because it's much smaller fire compartments and it much much less...

Wojciech Wegrzynski 58:21

I'm

Cecilia Wetterqvist 58:21

Yeah.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 58:21

honest, yes, Yeah.

Axel Mossberg 58:22

So, fire compartments, in that sense, we can say that fire compartmentation is a very important part of, like, reducing the, carbon footprint,

Wojciech Wegrzynski 58:30

It is. Thank God that sustainable facades are not breaking it, right?

Axel Mossberg 58:34

Yeah. Exactly.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 58:36

also said, you, you also said you, you checked the, the, the painted beams. So w-what color of the beam w-was the most sustainable?

Axel Mossberg 58:44

We like

Wojciech Wegrzynski 58:45

I guess green, uh,

Axel Mossberg 58:46

yeah, we like green.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 58:48

But no, uh, uh, 40% higher for commer- does this mean that if you put sprinklers, you bring it down closer to zero or even reverse it?

Axel Mossberg 58:57

Uh, yeah. Well, uh, I mean, uh, the... I-if we put sprinklers in, so w-when we evaluate the sprinkler systems, if we put, uh, the fire risk into the cal- if you don't, uh, look at the fire risk, uh, you would have like--

Wojciech Wegrzynski 59:09

higher,

Axel Mossberg 59:09

Yeah, it's like, uh, introducing a sprinkler systems, I think it's around ten kilograms, uh, carbon emiss- uh, CO2 emissions per square meter or something like that,

Wojciech Wegrzynski 59:18

Hmm?

Axel Mossberg 59:19

uh, in that order. but if we adhere to the fire risk, it's almost zero for the worst buildings, like the buildings where, where it has least potential. And for, for commercial buildings, for example, it actually saves, I think it's about 100 or 150 kilograms CO2, uh, equivalence per square meter once you put the sprinkler system in. So it's actually carbon positive to put the sprinkler system in. But if you go f- with the budget, as we talked about, you might be restrained and say that, "Oh, we can't put the sprinklers in because it's too much carbons-- carbon emissions," because we only look at the parts of the calculation

Wojciech Wegrzynski 59:57

a, a challenging thing would also be like, uh, i-i-if you, for those damage calculations, if you took different types of buildings like, u-u-un-unprotected timber frame building, for example, which which also is a possibility or, or

Cecilia Wetterqvist 1:00:10

Yeah

Wojciech Wegrzynski 1:00:10

you know. You, you could probably even go, deeper than that. It, it-- But it's already like a, a number that, uh, sounds like something. If it's 40% life cycle, uh, cost, that's a ridiculous number. That's, that's not a, a rounding error. That, that's

Cecilia Wetterqvist 1:00:26

No.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 1:00:27

contributor. And, you know, the whole discussion we're having, uh, one very dark, uh, thought is in my head and, only the most seasoned listeners of the podcast, uh, reach this point, uh, so I feel comfortable, uh, exposing that dark thought with you.

Safety Versus Climate Ethics Debate

Wojciech Wegrzynski 1:00:43

Like how much CO2 emissions is a human life worth?

Axel Mossberg 1:00:46

Yeah, I mean, that's, uh, the, that's also, uh, I think that's an interesting question. It's, I, I mean, it's a question of both money and carbon, I guess, in the, in this case. What, uh, what the-

Wojciech Wegrzynski 1:00:56

And morality and, and like, you know, uh, uh, and, societal willingness, uh, to invest into stuff until someone dies, you know, because

Cecilia Wetterqvist 1:01:04

Yeah, but you know what? Then there are other people saying that people are already dying because of climate changes. Yeah.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 1:01:11

I know.

Cecilia Wetterqvist 1:01:11

So it is already happening. So we do have two objectives- Yeah that talk about human lives in the end. Mm.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 1:01:18

Yeah, I, I know, I know, but it's kind of, you know, like, a kind of a discussion between, uh, personal, uh, risk, uh, versus societal risk in a way. In this case, you're trading, building risk versus the global risk, uh, accounted for the, for the whole planet, right? And, the individual quest- maybe reframing the question, can you justify lowering the safety standards in this building for the gains in, in the overall c- climate ecosystem? That's very-- mean, if, if this was considered at any point, because the, the... Like if you say that people are already dying because of a climate, I guess that's a justification of the price of kilogram of CO2 emission, kind of. It must be a part of that

Axel Mossberg 1:02:05

Yeah.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 1:02:06

right? So, so it's, it's already a currency for that in,

Axel Mossberg 1:02:10

Yeah. In a way. But yeah, I think, and I think that's why, I guess, the key element here that it is a currency, and as you said, like, in the beginning, uh, it is a currency now. We c- we calculate the costs, and we need to see it that way. And I, I think that like, when we, when we talk about fire risk and introducing it into the LCA calculation, it's the comparison would be like we do a life cycle cost analysis of a sprinkler system, but we don't include the fire. So of course, then it would only cost money because,

Wojciech Wegrzynski 1:02:41

Yeah.

Axel Mossberg 1:02:41

because, uh, we don't adhere to the positive effects of it, and that, that would be a ridiculous calculation, and it's the same with the carbon dioxide. so I think that's the, like, the main message. It's, it's a currency. We have to-- But we have to get the fire risk in it because otherwise no one else is gonna think about it.

Cecilia Wetterqvist 1:02:58

No, 'cause we will also end up being more and more dependent on the, the regulations when it comes to fire safety design. Uh, if you don't have a, a regulatory level that demands a fire, uh, sprinkler system, for example, or a, a fire safety alarm system, uh, the-- it's then when the, this can be, uh, tricky. If we want to put something in that we think is a good thing for the people living in the building and for the building when it comes to resilience, if you don't have it with you as a demand and try to argue, put it in there, and ends up talking about CO2 emissions, and don't think about the risk, the fire risk, then we will end up in tricky situations

Wojciech Wegrzynski 1:03:39

Yeah, I, I also don't want to come out of this, uh, interview as some sort of climate den-denialist. I'm not Joe Rogan, neither in, uh, you know, popularity nor in my assessment of, of, of the climate change. When I f-first learned, and that was like probably a decade ago, there's a really nice book, uh, by one of the Polish professors about the climate change, and he put it very clearly, uh, why the CO2 concentration is the driver. And I'm-- when I read that, I'm like, "Oh, shit, we're, we're screwed," because like CO2, if that's a driver, then, then it's not great. my objective is just that, you know, perhaps, uh, I'm, I'm all-- I'm up for smart things. Like if we tax everything that comes from China insanely in terms of construction markets because of the, the fact that the-- we, we kind of share the same atmosphere with them. They don't have their private atmosphere. It, it goes to our, uh, CO2, uh, concentration we have in here. So i-if we do that, I'm, I'm fine. But at the same time, like I'm really, really against sacrificing, uh, the components of fire safety on, uh, the altar of, of these, uh, CO2 calculations when we know it could be done a way that's compatible with each other. There's no explicit reason of incompatibility other than it has not been done yet.

Axel Mossberg 1:04:58

Yeah. And I, I mean, the core message is here is that it's actually the f- the fire safety system reduces CO2. It doesn't increase the CO2 emissions, it reduces the CO2 emissions. But when we calculate it, the reduction doesn't count. so that's, I mean, that's the core mess- And as we've talked about earlier, like the lifespan, uh, the-- if we ca- calculate for buildings with longer lifespans, that's, that's just gonna be, uh, exaggerated. I mean, for when we looked at, I think, 100 years lifespan, uh, of

Wojciech Wegrzynski 1:05:26

Mm-hmm

Axel Mossberg 1:05:27

commercial, then the CO2 emissions from fire in a commercial building is 120% of that, of

Wojciech Wegrzynski 1:05:33

Wow

Axel Mossberg 1:05:33

the, the construction cost of CO2 emissions. So then the s- the sprinkler system is gonna be even more important, even, even though we calculate, we calculate a replacement of the system every 12, 25 years. so I mean, we're looking at sustainability, we have to adhere to the fire risk because we other- otherwise, we're not building sustainable, even, even if we're talking, uh, on sustainability, on carbon emissions or however we talk about it.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 1:05:59

Brilliant

Axel Mossberg 1:05:59

Uh, and also, I think I just wanted to add, we did a, some stuff on the timber. It's not in the paper, we have it in the Swedish report, but we did a, a, we had a look on, on timber constructions as well. The, the main challenge there is that the, the statistics is actually very tricky. So, so there is no statistical evidence, or in Sweden, there's like three different analyses of, uh, differences between timber buildings and, uh, other buildings or concrete buildings. one shows that it's more damage in timber buildings, one shows that it's less damage in timber buildings, and one shows that it's the same damage in timber buildings. So it's it's kinda tricky, uh, doing the assessment. So what we did was actually we calculated backwards, and then we, we said like, if we want to look at like how large the fire damage would have to be to, uh, eliminate the positive effects of building with timber, you would have to have a fire damage, which is, uh, I think in, apartment buildings, since it's, uh, the small compartmentation and so on, it would have to be like 140 times bigger than the average in average.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 1:07:10

Okay

Axel Mossberg 1:07:10

is statistically unlikely that it wouldn't appear in the, uh, clearly in the statistics yet. But for commercial buildings, for example, it's just, it, it's about, uh, it's a much smaller, number. So it c- that could still be like, uh,

Wojciech Wegrzynski 1:07:25

but in this type of construction, the damage will be very largely, correlated with types of safety systems you have

Axel Mossberg 1:07:31

Yeah, exactly. And it's also, I mean, it's also challenging because that's-- like we're talking about timber buildings, but t-timber building isn't a timber building. I mean, a light frame building is something completely different than a CLT building,

Wojciech Wegrzynski 1:07:42

Of

Axel Mossberg 1:07:43

and a protected CLT building is something else than a exposed CLT buildings. So, so it's super challenging to get into those statistics and actually get a, a, like, reliable number. But there-- you can calculate like conceptual-

Cecilia Wetterqvist 1:07:57

Mm-hmm

Axel Mossberg 1:07:58

uh, stuff from the, from the-- with the method that we, that-

Cecilia Wetterqvist 1:08:02

Okay

Axel Mossberg 1:08:02

we introduced. Yeah.

Cecilia Wetterqvist 1:08:03

And, and just to add here as well, we said it before as well, but we, we haven't, uh, included the fire rescue services,

Wojciech Wegrzynski 1:08:09

Oh, we need to get

Cecilia Wetterqvist 1:08:10

this.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 1:08:10

of those. The,

Axel Mossberg 1:08:10

Yeah.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 1:08:11

CO2 costs, society

Cecilia Wetterqvist 1:08:13

So

Wojciech Wegrzynski 1:08:13

need that. That's like

Cecilia Wetterqvist 1:08:14

Yeah. You know, when they just put water on everything, and it kind of destroys the wood, and it's not a

Wojciech Wegrzynski 1:08:17

like

Cecilia Wetterqvist 1:08:18

good thing. Yeah.

What Should Change In Policy Next

Cecilia Wetterqvist 1:08:23

Yeah.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 1:08:23

Uh, okay. And any, any final messages? Uh, where would you like this to head? Would you like to influence your Swedish framework? Would you like this to become a part of, uh, LEED, BREEAM? Like, what's the big picture of, of where this can land?

Cecilia Wetterqvist 1:08:37

we have, uh, a lot of different thoughts when it comes to that. We, uh, absolutely do want to make sure that we don't have, um, legislations that doesn't give us the, the space to design the fire safety that we think is necessary for the buildings. Uh, but we're also trying to, to see whether we can put fire safety or fire resilience in some kind of certificate system somehow. we've touched upon that for some years now. We will see where we can-- what we can do on that.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 1:09:07

I'm crossing my fingers that we eventually find a way to get it in fitting within the pictures in the same language as everyone else speaks, and it just becomes as natural. And, uh, you know, uh, someone once brought that it's very difficult to, uh, teach the, whole industry a completely new thing that you have to think differently. But look, 20 years ago, no one calculated carbon, and yet here we are, everyone, uh, everyone does that. So we definitely, with, with smart approach and enough lobbying for safety, should be able to, to, to get this message done, especially that, as you said, Axel, it is a tool to reducing, uh, carbon. So we're playing in the same league. We're not the bad guys anymore who try to increase, uh, the footprint of everyone else. We're, we're trying to help you get, uh, somewhere in, in the, in the framework you're already working.

Axel Mossberg 1:09:59

Yeah, exactly. And I mean, uh, just to, to add to that, I mean, uh, or, uh, that's a factor as well because it's a b- evaluation tool just in the same way as cost. In, in the same way as cost, we, we-- All fire safety isn't good fire safety. Some fire-- Some buildings should have this fire safety, and some buildings should have that fire safety. And when we do that decision, we, uh, we discuss the cost, and now this is a tool to discuss the cost of, uh, in terms of carbon dioxide as well. So not-- We, we're not arguing that all buildings should have sprinklers because not-- it doesn't reduce the carbon footprint in all buildings, but in many buildings, more buildings than you think, uh, you would reduce it by putting sprinklers.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 1:10:40

I would say that, but, uh, never mind, I'm not an expert. Anyway, uh, thank you guys for, for spending, uh, your time coming to Farsight show and sharing this, uh, with our listeners and,

Closing Thoughts And Open Questions

Wojciech Wegrzynski 1:10:52

uh, uh, yeah. It's, it's the new reality we have to live in, so I hope, uh, we can find all- all together a way, a way out so far safety is, is, is back in the main, uh, uh, mainstream picture. Thank you.

Axel Mossberg 1:11:04

Yeah. Thank you very much

Wojciech Wegrzynski 1:11:05

And that's it, uh, the new reality. I'm not sure how I feel about the new reality. I guess, uh, there's not much choice. We, we have to live and, uh, perhaps even embrace this. I appreciate that, uh, Axel and Cecilia are using the language of the, climate certificates and, uh, all these climate policymakers. It's, it's a very smart move to adopt, adjust our way of thinking to something they can universally understand. And if you show something like, uh, sprinklers reducing carbon footprint, uh, you probably get someone's attention. So I, I hope this pathway is actually successful and it gets us somewhere. papers are in the show notes, so there's more reading material if you like. The episode's already long, so I will not prolong, uh, this much more. You've heard my thoughts on the subject within the conversation. I wonder what are your thoughts on the subject and, uh, how much of fire safety are we willing to sacrifice, to offset some carbon or, or be more sustainable, whatever that eventually means. I, I'm not willing to sacrifice too much actually. However, I also kind of, um, admit that not all we do for sake of fire safety is bringing fire safety. So there are things that I would be willing to cut if they're not bringing us fire safety and they create a cost within the sustainable budget that perhaps is something to be, to be cut. But that's for another episode. Thank you very much for being here with me in the Fire Science Show, and I'm looking forward to have you here with me next Wednesday where more science is coming your way. See you there. Cheers. Bye.