This collection of embodied carbon reduction case studies showcases built projects across a wide range of building types from office to high-rise residential to industrial facilities to university buildings to single-family residential homes. They implemented embodied carbon reduction strategies including low carbon concrete, mass timber, adaptive reuse, salvaged materials, innovative bio-based materials, and design for material efficiency.
CLF collaborated with these project teams to capture their design and decision-making processes, procurement successes and challenges, construction lessons learned, and what their team members took away from the experience of successfully reducing embodied carbon on their projects. Each case study includes the story, the details of the LCAs, including the development of a baseline and the reported results compared to the design case.
Sobre
The momentum behind addressing embodied carbon is rapidly accelerating. The past five years have seen an unprecedented increase in incentives and requirements related to embodied carbon reporting and reductions across codes and policies, certification programs, and voluntary commitment programs. Built environment leaders are also increasing internal efforts to assess and reduce embodied carbon across their projects.
In the fall of 2024, the Carbon Leadership Forum launched a new effort to collect, curate, and publish building project case studies that have achieved embodied carbon reductions. This effort aims to support the growing community of architecture, engineering, and construction teams, as well as owners and developers looking for inspiration and practical strategies to reduce embodied carbon on their projects. Each case study’s results are backed by data from a life cycle assessment (LCA).Â
The goal of this effort is to create a collection of project case studies that showcase how completed projects have assessed and reduced their embodied carbon, making it easier for building industry professionals to scale low-carbon design and construction practices. Being a ‘CLF Embodied Carbon case study’ is not part of a verification or certification process. These case studies focus on reduction strategies and are not intended to be used for benchmarking. To learn more about North American whole building life cycle assessment (WBLCA) building benchmarks, see CLF’s latest publications from the CLF WBLCA Benchmarking Study v2 o visita el public dataset (Benke et al. 2024, Benke et al 2025a).
To explore all of the project case studies in detail and read more about the selection and review process, limitations, and areas for future development, please click on the PDF download link for the case study collection located to the right.
Autores
- Michelle Lambert, Policy and Engagement ManagerÂ
- Aurora Jensen, Senior Manager, Carbon Buildings
- Sindhu Raju, Project Assistant
- Meghan Lewis, Program Director
Expresiones de gratitud
This research was supported by the Jampart Charitable Trust.Â
This publication would not have been possible without the project teams that contributed case studies. A special thank you to these individual contributors from each firm who provided analysis, writing, and completed an interview with CLF staff:
- Arizona Dabrusin, DCI Engineers
- Brett Macht, emersion DESIGN
- Cathy McMahon, Moriyama Teshima Architects
- Chris Magwood, RMI and Builders for Climate Action
- Christopher Nielson, Bruner/Cott Architects
- Claudia Tarpin, Prologis
- David Arkin, AIA, Arkin Tilt Architects
- Eliana Peralta-Sapienza, BranchPattern
- Haley Hiller, Sustainable Building Partners
- Jacob Deva Racusin, New Frameworks
- Jen Wolf, Sustainable Building Partners
- Jenna Pye, VMDO Architects
- Jenny Emrick, Prologis
- JP Mays, VMDO Architects
- Juanita Garcia, Pepper Construction
- Katie Weber, Moriyama Teshima Architects
- Kyle Waymeyer, CMTA
- Laura Wang, Moriyama Teshima Architects
- Lyndley Kent, Neumann Monson Architects
- Natalia Alvarez, Pepper Construction
- Niusha Manavi, Bora Architecture & Interiors
- Tavi Hillesland, Arkin Tilt Architects
- Thuy Le, Bora Architecture & Interiors
- Tom DeVore, Arkin Tilt Architects
- Tyler Pitt, VMDO Architects
- Wyatt Ross, CMTA
Citación
Lambert, M., Jensen, A., Raju, S., and Lewis, M. (2025). Embodied Carbon Reductions Built Project Case Study Collection, Volume 1. Carbon Leadership Forum, Seattle, WA.
Derechos de autor
Published under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)