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Green Breakthrough Tool Empowers Users to Reduce Embodied Carbon Atlanta – The Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator (EC3) tool, launched in public beta version at Greenbuild, gives the building industry a powerful means to take action on an area of growing concern: embodied carbon emissions of building materials.
This free, open-access tool, based on the industry’s first database of digitized Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), will allow architects, engineers, owners, construction companies, building material suppliers and policymakers to easily evaluate and reduce embodied carbon emissions from construction materials, effectively empowering them to reduce embodied carbon within buildings at scale. The EC3 tool is the first free tool that allows for supply chain specific analysis of embodied carbon data, utilizing the first searchable and sortable database of all
United States and Canadian Environmental Product Declarations for concrete, steel, wood, glass, aluminum, insulation, gypsum, carpet and ceiling tiles. It is also the first tool to create a digital EPD form and to translate all EPDs into that form for viewing and analyzing the data. Prior to the introduction of this free, open-access EPD database and visualization features, users were hampered with PDF-based EPDs. Users can now easily estimate upfront embodied carbon emissions associated with material production and construction processes. By enabling simple visualization of a project’s potential and realized embodied carbon impacts, along with the ability to see baselines and set reduction targets, users can accelerate the industry’s efforts to address the problem of embodied carbon on a global scale. The building and construction sector have a vital role to play in eliminating carbon, as it is responsible for nearly 40% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Architecture 2030 reports that between now and 2060 the world’s population will double the amount of building floor-space, equivalent to
building an entire New York City every month for 40 years. Much of the carbon footprint of these new buildings will take the form of embodied carbon —
This free, open-access tool, based on the industry’s first database of digitized Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), will allow architects, engineers, owners, construction companies, building material suppliers and policymakers to easily evaluate and reduce embodied carbon emissions from construction materials, effectively empowering them to reduce embodied carbon within buildings at scale.
the emissions associated with material production and building construction. In fact, Architecture 2030 reports that embodied carbon will be responsible for almost half of total new construction emissions between now and 2050. Unlike operational carbon emissions, which can be reduced over time with building energy-efficiency renovations and the use of renewable energy, embodied carbon emissions are locked in place as soon as a building is built. “It is critical that owners, designers, engineers, contractors, and policy makers turn their attention to building materials and seek information that will pave the way to reduce embodied carbon,” said Kate Simonen, director of the Carbon Leadership Forum and professor in the College of Built Environments at the University of Washington. “Recognizing this imperative, the Carbon Leadership Forum and nearly 50 industry leaders came together to offer their expertise, committed to a tool that was free to use and part of a growing open-access embodied carbon data ecosystem.” Read the entire article at www.HighProfile.com.
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