Turner Embodied Carbon Benchmark 2023

OVERVIEW

We are pleased to release the 2023 update to Turner’s Embodied Carbon Benchmark on the following page. This report reflects emerging trends in the greenhouse gas emissions associated with a sample of our projects’ material footprint. Below is a snapshot of initial conclusions and opportunities for future reduction of embodied carbon in the building materials studied. We hope this benchmarking report will serve as a valuable resource in affecting universal change in the way we build, work, and live in the built environment.

C O M PA N Y

SUMMARY This report corroborates some widely accepted conclusions relating to the embodied carbon footprint of new commercial buildings in the United States. In particular, this study indicates:

BENCHMARK

• Industry is making incremental • Concrete and steel materials improvements in lower embodied remain significant drivers of carbon material availability though total embodied carbon more can, and must, be done. footprint in buildings.

Future work may explore additional materials such as aluminum, insulation, gypsum board, and acoustic panels to represent a more complete scope of building enclosure and major interiors.

EMBODIED CARBON 2023

TRADE SPECIFIC DETAILS of this Embodied Carbon Baseline include: CONCRETE: • For the purpose of this study, concrete includes ready-mixed concrete, precast concrete, concrete masonry units (CMU), aggregate, shotcrete, flowable fill, concrete paving, and cementitious soil treatment.

• In this study, concrete materials generated an average of 53% of a building’s embodied carbon footprint.

FOR QUESTIONS OR MORE INFORMATION: Rowan Parris

Embodied Carbon Program Manager rparris@tcco.com 980.402.4881

Lindsey Landwehr-Fasules

STRUCTURAL STEEL: • For the purpose of this study, structural steel includes hot-rolled sections, concrete reinforcing (rebar, wire mesh, and pre- or post- tensioning tendons), metal decks, plate steel, hollow sections, and merchant bar.

• In this study, steel materials generated an average of 33% of a building’s embodied carbon footprint.

ASPHALT: • For the purpose of this study, only asphalt paving materials were included in this category. Roofing and waterproofing products were excluded, though they may be considered in future iterations of the report.

• In this study, asphalt materials generated an average of 7% of a building’s embodied carbon footprint.

Director - Sustainability lfasules@tcco.com 312.446.0944

GLASS:

Julia Gisewite

• In this study, glazing materials generated an average of 6% of a building’s embodied carbon footprint.

V.P. Sustainability jgisewite@tcco.com 202.439.9970

• For the purpose of this study, glass includes both flat and processed glass panes used in the exterior building façade and in interior storefront applications. Mirrors and small door lites have been excluded.

WOOD: • For the purpose of this study, wood includes prefabricated mass timber elements (CLT, GLT, DLT, NLT), dimensional lumber, and sheet products where quantities are known (e.g. roof blocking or doors). Miscellaneous in-wall blocking is excluded from this report.

• In this study, wood materials generated an average of 2% of a building’s embodied carbon footprint.

METHODOLOGY

COMPARING LOCALIZED INDUSTRY DATA TO PUBLISHED INDUSTRY BASELINES What’s in a carbon factor? Third-party verified, product-specific and facility-specific Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) are the gold-standard for tracking material carbon impacts.

However, industry baselines must often be used in earlier phases of project development before enough information is available to choose a representative product-specific EPD. In this study, results using two types of industry data were calculated and compared — 1) 2)

The Carbon Leadership Forum (CLF)’s 2021 Baselines Report2, and Localized industry averages from EC3 filtered for the likely geographic procurement limits and available performance criteria by material.

16% lower embodied carbon on average was demonstrated across the 37 projects in this study when localized industry averages were used. These results indicate that using this more specific data representative of individual project regions and/or performance requirements yields better results and lower embodied carbon, even in the absence of product-specific EPDs. Each point on the scatterplot below represents a project from the study. The percent reduction achieved can be seen on the y-axis.

Reduction from CLF 2021 Reference to Conservative Collection (%)

35%

Concrete and steel remain top priorities when considering the overall embodied carbon of buildings and targeting key reduction strategies. The chart below outlines the average relative contributions of each of the five material categories tracked in this study.

Why is steel less of a contributor than last year? In last year’s report, which was limited to only concrete and steel materials, each made up roughly equivalent portions of the total embodied carbon footprint for buildings in the sample set at 49% (concrete) and 51% (steel). By including additional material categories in this year’s update, we would expect to see both concrete and steel contributions decrease.

Instead, we see steel contributions (down 18%) decrease disproportionately to concrete (up 4%).

This is likely due to differences in this year’s sample set of projects, which have more projects with primarily concrete structures (7 out of 37 projects) compared to last year’s sample set which was dominated by composite steel structures (only 3 out of 32 primarily concrete projects).

2%

100%

7%

90%

33%

80% 70% 60% 50%

25%

30%

20%

20%

16%

15% 5%

Each point on the scatterplot below represents a project from the study. The percent reduction achieved can be seen on the y-axis.

30%

24%

Gross Floor Area (ft2) 3,000,000 2,000,000

471,719 ft2

1,000,000 -

Steel

Asphalt

Glass

Wood

Average Project

36.92 kg CO2e/SF is the average carbon intensity of the five key materials (concrete, steel, asphalt, glass, and wood) studied in this year’s sample set of projects.

$2,000,000,000.00 $1,500,000,000.00 $1,000,000,000.00 $-

A project-specific EC3 model using material quantities and EPD data is preferred for accurate benchmarking and reduction tracking, but Turner’s Embodied Carbon Coefficient can be used as an initial approximation or starting point.

This embodied carbon coefficient can be used to quickly and easily approximate a baseline for For example, the average project size in the 2 the embodied carbon footprint of a project or study is 471,719 ft , so the baseline embodied carbon of concrete, steel, asphalt, glass, and portfolio. wood material for a building of this size would be: 471,719 ft2 x 36.92 kg CO2e = 17,415,865 kg CO2e

-10%

Projects with P-S EPDs

SAMPLE GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION

1 – Incubated by industry non-profits Carbon Leadership Forum and Building Transparency, EC3 is a tool for benchmarking, assessment, and reduction of embodied carbon using a robust database of digital, third-party verified Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs). Turner is proud to be a pilot partner since early 2021. For more info: https://buildingtransparency.org/ec3.

3 – According to the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator. For more info: https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator#results.

Projects

Total project revenue is distributed similarly in this dataset, with a positive skew indicated by a smaller median ($200M) than the mean ($308.8M). The minimum project volume in this study is $200k and the maximum is $1.9B.

This year’s embodied carbon coefficient represents a 4.44% increase over last year’s coefficient which included only two materials—concrete and steel. A comparison of just those two materials in isolation showed a 6.67% decrease from 2022 to 2023. While small, this reduction is indicative of a market shift and increase in availability of lower carbon materials.

2 –Note: CLF has published a newer version of its Baselines Report in 2023; however, its inclusion in EC3 is still ongoing due to changes in CLF methodology used to generate baseline data. Therefore, 2023 values were excluded from this report. For more info: https://carbonleadershipforum.org/2021-material-baseline-report/.

$308.8M

$500,000,000.00

(or 5 utility-scale wind turbines operating for one year3)

0%

Mean

$2,500,000,000.00

20% 10%

Mean

Projects

TURNER EMBODIED CARBON COEFFICIENT

COMPARING PRODUCT-SPECIFIC DATA TO PUBLISHED INDUSTRY BASELINES 24% lower embodied carbon on average was demonstrated in the six projects which had already begun to collect product-specific EPD data by the time this study was completed. These reductions are in comparison to the CLF 2021 Baselines2.

A range of building sizes are represented in this study, from 30,243 ft2 at minimum to just shy of 2M ft2 at maximum. The average (mean) gross floor area is 471,719 ft2, whereas the median is 259,205 ft2, indicating a slightly positively skewed dataset.

Project Revenue ($USD)

Concrete Projects

SAMPLE FLOOR AREA

SAMPLE REVENUE

0%

0%

37 projects were modeled for this study with the following criteria: • Project scope has been awarded to Turner or a Turner-led JV, • Building is either ground-up/new construction or a renovation/expansion with at least 3 of the 5 tracked materials included in scope, and • Project is currently in Preconstruction (at the time of selection in Q3 2023).

Projects represent one project from each Business Unit (BU) across the U.S. with active precon contracts in 2023 and reflect a variety of market segments totaling more than $ 11B and 17.4M SF.

53%

10%

10%

-10%

6%

100%

40%

30%

-5%

Reduction from CLF 2021 Reference to Realized GWP (%)

AVERAGE PROJECT EMBODIED CARBON MAKEUP BY MATERIAL CATEGORY

Revenue ($USD)

WHAT IS IN THIS REPORT? Among the information included in this publication, and of special importance, is the Turner Embodied Carbon Coefficient. This multiplier was determined by analyzing a sample of Turner projects representing more than $ 11B and 17.4M SF in the United States. Sampled projects were modeled in the Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator (EC3)1 using material quantities for five key materials estimated during preconstruction along with localized industry embodied carbon data.

Gross Floor Area (ft2)

FINDINGS

Projects across 34 different BUs were modeled in this study. Most were primarily new steel composite structures, though a few were primarily concrete or timber, and/or reno/expansion scopes.

- Steel - Concrete - Timber - Reno/Expansion