Performance & Compliance · Position paper

The Carbon Account

A six-page position paper that itemises the carbon paid once to build a 1,000 m² EPIC cell and sets it against the carbon avoided every year on water that is neither treated nor pressurised.

Issued by: EPIC Total Water Solutions
Format: PDF · 6 pages · 1.9 MB
Access: Open

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About this document

The Carbon Account works through one 1,000 m² EPIC cell line by line, with every kilogram of resin, square metre of membrane, tonne of aggregate and litre of diesel on one side, and every cubic metre of water neither treated nor pressurised on the other.

The debit is built from published emission factors: polypropylene resin (Franklin Associates for the American Chemistry Council, 2021), injection moulding (ARBURG to EUROMAP 60.2), reinforced EPDM membrane (ASTM International EPD, 2022) and a GCC grid factor of 0.40 kg CO₂ per kWh. The total is 16.77 t CO₂e for an asset rated at 50 years, of which 9.67 t is EPIC hardware and freight and 7.10 t is site work common to most landscape construction. The membrane is the largest single line.

The credit comes from two electrical mechanisms: treatment energy not spent on water that is never called for, at 0.80 kWh per m³, and pumping energy saved because EPIC works at a transfer duty of around 0.5 bar rather than the roughly 3.5 bar a spray system needs. Against a lawn at 9 L/m²/day, the paper tabulates water saved, CO₂ avoided, carbon payback and the net position at 50 years for 50%, 65% and 80% saving cases.

The paper then lists four credits it leaves out, including the recurring carbon of the spray system being replaced, and describes end of life, where chambers, sand and gravel are reused or recycled rather than discarded. It closes by running the same arithmetic over a proposal to irrigate 100 million Ghaf saplings from reverse-osmosis reject water, and names the programmes under which irrigation water savings can be registered.

16.8 tCO₂e embodied per 1,000 m², paid once, for a 50-year asset

1.03 tCO₂e avoided per 1,000 m² every year, managed 80% water case

3.1×Lifetime credit over lifetime debit across 50 years

16.3 yearsAll-in carbon payback, including site works, in the 80% case

What is inside

01
What the system is made ofWhy a mass share of under 0.5% plastic is not a carbon claim, and what the chambers are made of.
02
The debitOne 1,000 m² cell itemised: chambers, EPDM membrane, freight, sand and gravel and installation plant, with each emission factor and its source.
03
The creditTreatment and pumping energy avoided, carbon payback and the net position at 50 years across three water-saving cases.
04
Omissions and end of lifeFour credits left out of the account, and how chambers, sand and gravel return to service.
05
At national scaleThe same arithmetic applied to 100 million Ghaf saplings, and where water-saving credits can be registered.