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Energies 2012, 5, 2874-2893; doi:10.3390/en5082874 OPEN ACCESS energies ISSN 1996-1073 /journal/energies Article Are the Greenhouse Gas Implications of New Residential Developments Understood Wrongly? Jukka Heinonen 1,*, Antti-Juhani Säynäjoki 1, Matti Kuronen 2 and Seppo Junnila 1 1 Department of Surveying and Planning, School of Engineering, Aalto University, P.O. Box 15800, Aalto 00076, Finland; E-Mails: antti.saynajoki@aalto.fi (A.-J.S.); seppo.junnila@aalto.fi (S.J.) 2 RAKLI—The Finnish Association of Building Owners and Construction Clients, Annankatu 24, Helsinki 00100, Finland; E-Mail: matti.kuronen@rakli.fi * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: jukka.heinonen@aalto.fi; Tel.: +358-50-577-1831. Received: 1 June 2012; in revised form: 26 July 2012 / Accepted: 27 July 2012 / Published: 6 August 2012 Abstract: Built environment carbon reduction strategies materialize predominantly in city-level greenhouse gas (GHG) management, where new residential development appears as one of the key instruments. However, city-level assessments are often incapable of producing data at a community or neighborhood level and thus they may heavily underestimate the emissions from new construction. This paper explores the implications of low-energy residential construction as an instrument of climate change mitigation in the built environment and demonstrates why city-level approaches easily fail to identify the significance of the