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Carbon-Storing Materials

Summary Report | February 2021

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): “Limiting warming to 1.5 degrees C will require removing carbon from the atmosphere in addition to reducing emissions.”

Authors

The research team from the Carbon Leadership Forum at the University of Washington College of Built Environments:

  • Julie Kriegh, PhD, AIA, Research Scientist, Carbon Leadership Forum, Department of Architecture, College of Built Environments, University of Washington.
  • Chris Magwood, Director, Endeavor Center, The Sustainable Building School, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada.
  • Wil Srubar III, PhD, Associate Professor, University of Colorado Boulder, Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering Program.
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Version: February, 2021

Acknowledgments

The research team would like to thank Microsoft for funding this research and the following individuals: Danielle Decatur, Microsoft, Principal Program Manager of Datacenter Sustainability; Sean James, Microsoft, Director of Datacenter Research; Ben Stanley, WSP Sustainability, Energy and Climate Change consultant and project manager and the WSP team Sebastian Danio-Beck, Ryan Dick, Sarah Buffaloe, and Lama Bitar for their work on the project including the WBLCA and technical support; Kurt Swensson, PhD, PE, KSi structural engineering consultant for his work on the data center engineering models and specifications review; Monica Huang, Research Engineer, and Brook Waldman, researcher and consultant with the Carbon Leadership Forum for their assistance in preparing this report.

Citation

Kriegh, J., Magwood, C., Srubar, W. (2021).  Carbon-Storing Materials: Summary Report.

A carbon-positive future in three to five years?

The Carbon Leadership Forum at the University of Washington has recently completed a four-month research project with a major US tech company to understand the potential of using low-carbon and carbon-storing materials in new construction. The project focused on carbon-intensive hotspot materials (e.g., concrete foundations and slab floors, insulated roof and wall panels, and structural framing) in light industrial buildings.

The study found that a sizable reduction (~60%) in embodied carbon is possible in two to three years by bringing readily-available low-carbon materials into wider use. Furthermore, this work predicts that fostering a carbon-storing material supply system by investing in the development and manufacturing of nascent carbon-storing materials industries will make a carbon-positive future for individual projects possible in three to five years (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Potential carbon reductions (credit: Wil Srubar).

Resource Library

Reclaimed and Reused: Recommended LCA Modeling Guidance to Support EPDs for Reused Construction Materials

Material reuse is one strategy for reducing the embodied carbon of construction. While the preparation of previously used materials for reuse has an environmental impact, it avoids many of the resource extraction and manufacturing impacts of building with newly manufactured products. Given the amount of demolition and deconstruction across North America (and beyond), there is a vast potential for material reuse to expand in scale. However, barriers to material reuse scaling exist.

DEQ Low Embodied Carbon Housing Program: Roadmap to Success

Embodied Carbon Pathways to 2050 for the United States, a collaboration between the Carbon Leadership Forum (CLF), RMI, and the University of Washington (UW) Life Cycle Lab, provides an assessment of embodied carbon from US construction materials and explores pathways to align with a 1.5°C global warming limit.

International Embodied Carbon Data Availability: A Review of Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) Availability in Europe, China, and Australia

CLF completed a landscape analysis of product-level embodied carbon data availability in regions outside North America with the goals of: (i) understanding how LCA/EPD data availability varies globally; (ii) informing where targeted initiatives are needed to increase the availability of data; and (iii) determining whether adequate EPD data exists to develop CLF Material Baselines outside North America. This report summarizes our findings and provides initial insights into what data is available to inform low-carbon procurement efforts in Australia, China, and Europe.

The CLF Benchmark Explorer

Emissions from the operations of buildings and infrastructure are significant, well-understood contributors to national and global greenhouse gas emissions. However, the contribution of embodied carbon—emissions associated with the manufacturing, transportation, installation, maintenance, and disposal of construction materials across the life cycle of a building or asset—is neglected by comparison. Even at the global level, embodied carbon estimates are typically based on manufacturing emissions from the production of a handful of the highest-impact materials (e.g. concrete, steel, aluminum, and wood).

Embodied Carbon Pathways to 2050 for the United States

Embodied Carbon Pathways to 2050 for the United States, a collaboration between the Carbon Leadership Forum (CLF), RMI, and the University of Washington (UW) Life Cycle Lab, provides an assessment of embodied carbon from US construction materials and explores pathways to align with a 1.5°C global warming limit.

Washington State Carbon Emissions Estimation: 2025 – 2050

Emissions from the operations of buildings and infrastructure are significant, well-understood contributors to national and global greenhouse gas emissions. However, the contribution of embodied carbon—emissions associated with the manufacturing, transportation, installation, maintenance, and disposal of construction materials across the life cycle of a building or asset—is neglected by comparison. Even at the global level, embodied carbon estimates are typically based on manufacturing emissions from the production of a handful of the highest-impact materials (e.g. concrete, steel, aluminum, and wood).

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