Assessing thermal resilience and life cycle carbon impacts of adaptation measures in a net-zero residential building

Abstract Challenges from global warming, frequent extreme weather events, and the ongoing energy crisis are prompting a shift in building design approaches. Buildings must now be designed not only for energy efficiency but also for resilience to disruptions such as heatwaves. However, achieving resilience often requires added system redundancies, which may conflict with net-zero goals. This paper investigates the potential trade-offs between thermal resilience and life cycle carbon impacts through a case study of a newly constructed net-zero mid-rise residential building in London. A range of passive and active adaptation measures are evaluated following the CIBSE TM59 protocol for overheating assessment. Their embodied and operational carbon are calculated over a 60-year building lifespan to understand life cycle carbon impacts. Results show that passive strategies such as nighttime ventilation and heavyweight construction provide moderate improvements in thermal resilience with relatively low carbon impacts, but are insufficient under extreme future climate scenarios. Mechanical cooling is the most effective measure for mitigating overheating but introduces significantly higher life cycle carbon emissions. These findings highlight the need to balance decarbonization and thermal resilience objectives and the importance of integrated design strategies that optimise both objectives.