Marios Kordilas

Doctoral Researcher

UCL

https://www.burohappold.com/

After graduating with an MEng in Civil Engineering and an MSc in Environmental Design, Marios joined ERBE in search of greater intellectual depth and breadth. The aim of Marios’s research is to develop an integrated assessment framework that combines Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), dynamic thermal modelling, and projected evolutions of climate and electricity grids, informed by power system forecasting, to evaluate the whole impact spectrum of buildings over time. Particular emphasis is placed on assessing carbon and impacts beyond carbon under changing climatic and energy system conditions, at both coarse and high temporal resolutions, and on examining whether photovoltaic battery storage systems can mitigate decarbonisation-induced burden shifting.

Burden shifting, trade-offs, and heterogony of ends: Towards a dynamic Life Cycle Assessment for buildings under climate change, grid decarbonisation, and PV-battery storage with coarse and high temporal resolution.

The above title of his research attempts to aphoristically synthesise the knowledge to be extracted. First, burden shifting is an outcome of decarbonisation, manifesting consistently in land use across all Net Zero trajectories examined. Second, trade-offs are the consequence of assessments constrained to a single indicator, with improvements in one category displacing pressure to others. Third, the heterogony of ends is most clearly illustrated by the regulatory frameworks designed to prevent carbon targets from being met too easily through anticipated grid progress. By anchoring to conservative decarbonisation pathways, such frameworks guard against one form of misrepresentation whilst concealing another, the burden shifting in land use and mineral resource use that more ambitious and more probable trajectories will in all likelihood produce. There is little doubt that good intentions in building design, as in life overall, can be accompanied by unintended consequences; therefore, broadening the scope of impacts and deepening the temporal resolution is necessary to prevent designers, regulators, and policymakers from falling into a latent sense of progress which conceals the burdens accumulating beyond the scope or boundary of what is assessed.

Outputs can be found in the following articles and conference papers:

Kordilas M, Mumovic D, Schwartz Y, et al (2026) Temporal myopia in building Life Cycle Assessment? Granular versus coarse dynamics in climate change and grid decarbonisation. Building and Environment 295:114419. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2026.114419
Kordilas M, Mumovic D, Schwartz Y, et al (2025) The impact of evolving mix on building’s life cycle environmental impacts under climate change: insights from a London office case study. Int J Life Cycle Assess. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-025-02493-0
Kordilas M, Mumovic D, Schwartz Y, et al (2025) Comparative environmental assessment of heat pumps and gas boilers under evolving electricity mixes and climate change: A Case Study of a Residential Building in London. J Phys: Conf Ser 3140:132002. https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/3140/13/132002
Kordilas M, Mumovic D, Schwartz Y, et al (2026) Learnings from the Influence of Climate Change and Grid Decarbonisation on Carbon and Beyond Carbon Impacts of Buildings: Two Residential Cases in London. Environmental Science and Technology: Sustainable Development IV 179–193. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-19811-2_14
Kordilas M, Mumovic D, Schwartz Y, et al (2025) A systematic review of carbon and beyond carbon impacts of Life Cycle Assessment of buildings [accepted]. Technology|Architecture + Design
Kordilas, Marios, Dejan Mumovic, Yair Schwartz, Rob Cooke, and Smith Mordak. 2026. Net Benefits and Burdens of PV Battery Storage Systems in Buildings: Lifecycle Carbon and Impacts beyond Carbon under High Temporal Grid Decarbonisation Dynamics [in Preparation for Submission]. Building and Environment.