Altering the Earth’s landscape creates a larger ripple effect than earlier generations could imagine. Understanding the environmental impact of the building industry is crucial to addressing climate change. Embodied carbon may play the greatest role in this sector’s ecological effects — addressing it presents complex challenges for crew members.
How can construction teams effectively measure the impact of embodied carbon in their projects and their overall environmental impact? What steps can they take to mitigate these effects and build more sustainably? Is it possible to marry the human need for comfortable habitation with the equally pressing need to preserve their habitat? It’s a challenging balancing act, but here’s what research shows to date.
What Is Embodied Carbon and Why Does It Matter?
Embodied carbon refers to the total tons of carbon emissions building materials release throughout their lifecycle, including:
- Extraction: Removing raw materials from the earth.
- Manufacturing: Turning trees into usable lumber, for example.
- Transport: Moving materials from place to place.
- Construction: The actual building process.
- Disposal: The construction sector accounts for 30% of global waste.
With so many factors at play, it’s clear making construction more sustainable is a complex challenge. For example, a contractor who hopes to construct a LEED-certified building must pay attention to where they source their materials and the processes manufacturers use in creating joists, beams and toilets. They must weigh those against factors like transportation — is hemp-based lumber trucked in from distant lands truly eco-friendlier than a load that has traveled only 50 miles?
Using Embodied Carbon to Guide Building Practices
Keeping embodied carbon a foremost consideration helps crews mitigate the environmental impact of construction by choosing the most eco-friendly practices available at every stage of the game. If, for example, budgetary constraints dictate using less-than-ideal materials, more conscientious construction practices can still lower a project’s overall footprint.
For example, transitioning to hydrogen instead of fossil fuels has already decreased global energy sector emissions by 30%. Using such technology in residential buildings recently allowed Europe to construct the first zero-emissions houseby combining this fuel-cell technology with solar. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe and produces only water when created through climate-friendly electrolysis means.
Combining such innovations with embodied carbon principles allows crews to lower a project’s overall footprint, even if parts of the process aren’t entirely sustainable. For example, reforestation takes time. Although the 2020 Farm Bill paved the way for industrial hemp, it likewise takes a while to construct the necessary infrastructure to convert this fast-growing raw material into bricks, boards and floor tiles.
Building better to reduce waste and increase a completed structure’s energy efficiency somewhat makes up for the lumber harvested to construct it. A complex that creates net-zero emissions over its life span thanks to hydrogen and solar power can still be more sustainable than one built with the most eco-friendly materials but runs on fossil fuels.
6 Ways Understanding Embodied Carbon Improves Construction Processes
Understanding embodied carbon guides construction processes, improving them in the following six ways.
1. Meeting Regulatory and Certification Requirements
As the need to address climate change becomes more urgent, governments have begun taking stricter measures to increase regulatory and certification requirements. For example, the Biden Administration recently announced a national initiative to update building codes, the widespread adoption of which could save the average consumer up to $751 per month on their energy bills. However, crews will need to update their practices to align with the new standards.
2. Creating a Whole-Life Carbon Assessment
Building alters the physical landscape in ways that echo through generations. Look at some of the structures remaining from thousands of years ago in places like Rome and the Yucatan Peninsula. Therefore, it’s crucial to understand the impact of these alterations, not only through the construction phase but the entire lifetime of a building.
The need for a whole-life carbon assessment becomes more critical as humans seek renewable energy sources. For example, the issue of what to do with nuclear waste remains a pressing issue. However, it’s already possible to recycle old solar panels once they reach their useful life, an important consideration when deciding where to invest sustainable energy funding. Furthermore, while light refraction has started many a fire, solar power won’t result in meltdowns.
3. Ensuring Sustainable Material Selection
Choosing sustainable materials lowers the overall footprint of a building by decreasing energy consumption and loss over its lifetime, but understanding embodied carbon drives wise choices. For example, walls with 2×6 framing are only 4% more energy-efficient than those framed with 2x4s, but choosing the right insulation results in 15% higher energy savings. Crews can save more trees by choosing eco-friendly, heavy-duty stuff to line walls.
4. Optimizing Energy Efficiency
The less energy a building wastes, the less embodied carbon it creates throughout its life span. Understanding embodied carbon improves construction methodology for improved energy efficiency. For example, the simple act of choosing roofing materials with a reflectivity rating of 65% or higher significantly reduces energy use in hot climates. Combining the right color with a sustainable roof and solar technology creates an extremely efficient home.
5. Realizing Operational Savings
Buildings cost money, not just create carbon emissions, over their lifespans. Understanding embodied carbon results in operational savings on utility costs. It goes beyond electricity. For example, low-flow plumbing fixtures reduce water use, especially when combined with greywater recycling systems that recapture rainwater for exterior irrigation needs.
6. Maintaining a Positive Reputation Amid Market Demand
Nearly everyone understands the need to combat climate change, and consumers have indicated a willingness to pay more for sustainable features. Understanding embodied carbon and explaining these principles to consumers as part of a company’s marketing strategy makes sound business sense. Furthermore, implementing such practices builds a firm’s expertise in more sustainable techniques, making them obvious choices for larger government and corporate contracts in which eco-friendliness is a primary focus.
Embodied Carbon and Sustainable Construction
Embodied carbon calculates a construction project’s entire footprint, from raw material harvesting to its eventual renovation or demolition. Reducing waste and improving eco-friendliness matters at every stage of the game and understanding how they fit together can minimize the built world’s impact on the environment.
Using embodied carbon principles to guide construction projects helps firms minimize their project’s impact and improve their sustainable building techniques. They increase their competitiveness and ability to keep up with ever-changing regulations.
