Significant but Understated

Embodied Carbon’s Impact

By Joel Nelson on Jul 29, 2024 in Energy

Most people realize that carbon emissions come from heating, cooling and lighting buildings, houses, roads, bridges and other elements of the built environment. But there’s another significant source of carbon whose environmental implications might be less visible but no less urgent: embodied carbon, which comes from the extraction, manufacturing, transportation, installation and disposal of materials such as steel, concrete, insulation and drywall.

Buildings account for about 39% of global energy-related carbon emissions, with about 28% coming from operational emissions and 11% from materials and construction. For new buildings, embodied carbon emissions typically equal about 20 years of operating emissions. With the world’s building stock expected to double by 2060 – the equivalent of adding an entire New York City to the planet every month – the World Green Building Council calls managing embodied carbon a “significant yet often understated role on the path to net zero,” with “the built environment sector [having] a vital role to play in responding to the climate emergency, and addressing upfront carbon is a critical and urgent focus.”

“Reducing embodied carbon from construction materials is essential to effectively addressing climate change,” adds the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Evaluating the level of embodied carbon involves completing a whole building life cycle assessment. This process examines the quantities of materials and products used and where they came from, from sourcing through construction and use to end of life disposal. With this assessment in hand, developers can make carbon-smart choices during design, procurement and construction.

The movement to control embodied carbon is growing. For example, the EPA and other federal agencies have formed a Buy Clean Task Force that encompasses 90% of federally financed and purchased construction materials. State and local governments along with private sector institutions have adopted similar initiatives. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 also provides grants, tax incentives and loans to procure low-carbon materials for construction and renovation projects.

“Finding creative ways to reuse existing buildings is an increasingly important strategy for reducing embodied emissions. The urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the short term means that the calculus for saving rather than demolishing an existing building has changed and is now weighed much more heavily against demolition,” according to AIA California, an 11,000-member advocacy group for architects.

Benefits of attention to embodied carbon include presenting more marketable buildings for buyers, lessees and investors to whom a building’s climate impact is important. 

Steps that can reduce embodied carbon include:

• Focusing on high volume materials, since between 50% and 75% of embodied emissions typically come from the concrete and steel in the foundation and structure.
• Renovating and upgrading buildings where possible, especially the foundations and structure where most of the embodied carbon lies.
• Seeking out recycled content materials; the embodied carbon footprint of new steel and aluminum can be five to six times that of high recycled content. Salvaged materials such as brick and wood typically have a much lower embodied carbon footprint than newly manufactured materials.

Global business consultant firm McKinsey & Company says, “Open data and collaboration across silos are going to be key, and the technology the industry uses to measure and reduce the environmental footprints of buildings is starting to reflect that. With new models of collaborative solution development powered by connected data, it may become possible to cut GHG emissions dramatically in less than a generation.”

Yardi is a real estate technology leader and ENERGY STAR® Partner of the Year Sustained Excellence winner awarded by the EPA and the U.S. Department of Energy. See our comprehensive solutions for managing costs, consumption and reporting across a portfolio.