Carbon Emissions, Transport and Location: a Sustainability Toolkit for Stakeholders in Office Development

The objective of this paper was to devise a tool to assist urban planners in the environmental component of decision making for the location of workplace destinations. It examines the transport related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions generated per person travelling to workplace destinations in the Greater Dublin Area (GDA). The research was carried out based on the following datasets: (i) Central Statistics Office (CSO) 2006 Place of Work Census of Anonymised Records (POWCAR) and (ii) CO2 emissions per mode of transport. A model was created combining the datasets within a 250 metre grid square coding of the GDA. The calculations produced by the model were analysed spatially and numberically using geographical information systems (GIS) software. The results reveal a link between the location of workplace destinations and the carbon emissions generated per person travelling to that location. Work place destinations within close proximity to a range of public transport options demonstrate significantly lower CO2 emissions than those in more out-of-town locations. The model can form the basis of a tool to assist urban planners in the environmental component of decision making for the location of workplace developments. The implication of the tool is that it can allocate a ranking to locations based on their sustainability from a transport perspective.