RE2020 offices
Thermal study and LCA for new offices
New office buildings fall under RE2020: bioclimatic design, primary-energy and summer-comfort indicators, and construction carbon.
RE2020 for offices
New office buildings fall under RE2020: bioclimatic design, primary-energy and summer-comfort indicators, and construction carbon. ARKEMEP runs the thermal study, dynamic simulation and LCA for office projects.
Application
Offices carry the strictest carbon expectations.
Office buildings represent the largest share of new tertiary construction, and the carbon thresholds applying to them have been the most closely watched. The structural decision, concrete, steel, timber, or a hybrid, dominates the embodied carbon result and is taken very early, often before any calculation has been run.
Running a comparative life-cycle model at competition or feasibility stage costs little and is the only moment at which the structural option is genuinely open. After the permit, the remaining levers are marginal.
Use
Occupancy patterns have changed, the regulation has not.
Reduced office occupancy changes actual consumption but not the regulatory calculation, which uses conventional scenarios. A building that performs well in use can still fail the calculation, and vice versa, a distinction worth making explicit to a client who reads their utility bills.
Summer comfort is a live issue in offices with large glazed facades. The degree-hour indicator is unforgiving on south and west exposures without external shading, and internal blinds do not substitute.
Portfolio
One building, or a standard for many.
Owners building repeatedly benefit from settling the structural and envelope questions once, at portfolio level, rather than re-arguing them on each scheme. A comparative carbon study across two or three typical configurations produces a reference that later projects start from, which is faster and more consistent than a fresh model each time.
That reference has a shelf life: thresholds tighten, and product declarations improve. Revisiting it every two or three years keeps it useful rather than misleading.
Going further
Related pages.
Office projects draw on these pages.
- RE2020 in the tertiary sector — the general framework
- Life-cycle carbon assessment — the structural decision
- Tertiary decree — what applies once the building is in use
- OPERAT annual declaration — the reporting that follows
- Offices under the tertiary decree — the existing-stock counterpart
- ARKEMEP: MEP and thermal engineering — who runs the studies
- Working with listed property companies — where compliance meets disclosure
- Engineering partner for competitions — modelling at the right stage
- Working with property developers — repeat construction
- LCA on estate renovation — the existing-stock counterpart
- Engineering — how the comparative studies are run
Discuss your project
Engineering, environmental advisory and independent certification under one group, with a strict separation of roles.
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