Two moments made Construction Stored Carbon real: one in a methodology, one in parliament.
The first building-level methodology
In 2021 Climate Cleanup and ASN Bank, working with parties from the construction sector, published the Construction Stored Carbon (CSC) method: a way to count how much CO2 a building stores in its bio-based materials, per cubic metre of wood, straw, hemp or other plant-based material, added up for the whole project. As far as we know it was the first methodology in the world to account for carbon storage at the level of a building, rather than of a material or a forest. It gave banks and developers a number they could act on, and it is the ancestor of the Oncra construction protocol and of the Dutch Bepalingsmethode for material-bound CO2 storage.
A motion in the House of Representatives
On 19 April 2022 MPs Henri Bontenbal (CDA), Faissal Boulakjar (D66) and Pieter Grinwis (ChristenUnie) tabled a motion that used the term we had coined. It notes that the storage of CO2 in materials used to build homes, such as wood, can play a role in the climate task, and asks the government to investigate what place construction stored carbon can have in policy for a sustainable built environment. On 10 May 2022 the House adopted it with 121 votes in favour.
A term invented in a foundation's office had become part of Dutch policy language. The government reported back in December 2022, and the road from there runs through the carbon credits research with Copper8, the first financed building with Ballast Nedam Development and the national calculation method of 2026.
Source: Kamerstuk 32 813, nr. 1012.