The Carbon Balancing Act: Let’s Debunk Greenwashing

Zero carbon claims abound. Some have been called out as greenwashing, and nearly all of them should be. Nearly all zero carbon claims omit highlighting their limited scope.

Simply put, the industry hasn’t had the data in many areas to know the embodied and operational carbon emissions impact, so claims omit important scope and attempt to declare victory when the finish line is far away. (Many claims also rely on offsets that may not meaningfully fulfill their goal). Just because we can’t easily quantify an impact doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. For example, the embodied carbon of MEP systems, perhaps 10-15% of total embodied carbon, is often omitted from carbon neutrality claims, along with furniture and equipment. We finally have the data to begin looking at carbon comprehensively, though with significant areas of uncertainty.

Most firms recognize this problem, of course, but our industry needs to get better at honesty and rigor in our claims. Questionable claims crowd out the hard work we are all doing to get us toward carbon neutrality. And we need to all get there to be effective.

LMN’s response has been the Path To Zero Carbon, a fail-forward series of 16 public posts based on engaging experts across the industry, outlining a broader scope of carbon impacts that need to be addressed to reach carbon neutrality. We began this exploration for several reasons beyond assessing carbon claims: 1) certifications titled Zero Carbon do not address all carbon emissions 2) we are updating our Sustainability Action Plan and need to understand areas to focus on. 3) our industry needs to reduce impacts, lessening our dependence on carbon offsets to claim zero carbon.

The Carbon Leadership Forum, eurodeputato 2040, SE 2050, and many others are leading the way with research into specific topics. The PTZC attempts to distill the best, current data and resources across these major carbon emission sources in the built environment so we can understand the carbon solutions broadly and begin to make informed carbon reductions and understand tradeoffs and consequences.

And carbon emissions are very interrelated among building systems. For example, window to wall ratio (WWR) not only increases energy use directly, but high WWR also increases peak cooling loads that in turn increase the size of mechanical system and associated embodied carbon and refrigerant use and replacement for decades to come; high WWR also eliminates some efficient mechanical systems from being considered; high peak loads due to high WWR also increases demand on the energy grid at the worst times, requiring additional fossil fuel peaker power plants to be built (along with their embodied carbon) but rarely used, increasing energy costs for everyone; high WWR ratio also reduces thermal comfort that often leads to increased HVAC energy use due to complaints triggering set point changes. The series attempts to understand these interrelated effects within a single carbon framework, from circular economy to sitework.