TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS  1.4.1. Background and objectives  Background  General objective The general objective of this study is to provide underlying data and information and, most  importantly, understanding, from a life cycle perspective when it comes to the performance and  improvement potential of buildings, in a way that encourages and supports policy making and  market initiatives. The EU does not yet have such a roadmap but the renovation wave includes this as an action and  sets out how the Commission: “will address the sustainability performance of construction  products in the context of its revision of the Construction Product Regulation and it will develop  by 2023 a roadmap leading up to 2050 for reducing whole life-cycle carbon emissions in  buildings.” Whole life carbon is the embodied and operational carbon taken together. For buildings, this total  is not yet targeted in EU policy. An important reason for that can be assumed to be the lack of  data on and awareness of the importance of embodied carbon, today and in the future. While a  limited number of member states of the EU has gathered data and set out national roadmaps and  quantified strategies, most parts of the EU have not. The countries that have developed their  roadmaps are moving on to use these as a basis for new policies to reduce whole life carbon, and  making this an integral part of their efforts to reach their overall climate objectives. The International Resource Panel (IPR), in its Resource Efficiency and Climate Change Report,  2020, and the UN Environment Emissions Gap Report 2019, conclude that the embodied carbon  in construction is estimated to account for about 10% of total yearly greenhouse gas emissions  worldwide. The IPR report sets out that greater material efficiency could, in the G7, save 80% of  those emissions (and this representing a 30-40% carbon reduction for the whole life cycle of  buildings).  Driving down embodied carbon is not only important at the stage of renovation but equally, at  least, important at the point of new construction.  In the Climate Target Plan 2030 1 the Commission has proposed to cut net greenhouse gas  emissions in the EU by at least 55% by 2030 compared to 1990 levels. The renovation wave, a  key initiative for the built environment under the European Green Deal, sets out how the building  sector is one of the areas where efforts must be ramped up. It points out that it:  “is therefore  urgent for the EU to focus on how to make our buildings more energy-efficient, less carbon- intensive over their full life-cycle and more sustainable. Applying circularity principles to  building renovation will reduce materials-related greenhouse gas emissions for buildings.”  $^{1}$ https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/eu-climate-action/2030_ctp_en  5