Should biogenic carbon be analysed separately in the calculation of the GWP indicator?

The life cycle assessment method is widely accepted for calculating the environmental impacts of buildings. However, the approaches used to translate greenhouse gas emissions to a global warming potential score are largely criticised. By following a static approach (known as 0/0) and a time-dependent approach (known as dynamic) in this paper, we assessed the environmental impacts of two buildings with structures made of reinforced concrete and wood, respectively. The relative difference between the results calculated with the 0/0 approach and the time-dependent approach were larger for the building with the wooden structure. A more detailed analysis identified biogenic carbon as the source that was most responsible for this difference in results. For this reason, biogenic carbon should be treated separately and must be calculated with the time-dependent approach. Meanwhile, the impacts from fossil energy sources should be calculated with the 0/0 approach.