Carbon Reflections

by Michelle Lambert
CLF Policy Researcher

Policies that address embodied carbon are being proposed and adopted at all levels of government—federal, state and local—at a rapidly accelerating pace. Much of the attention to date has focused on policies on the West Coast, but great work and progress on embodied carbon policy is also happening in the Northeast.

This report highlights nine policies in the Northeast region of the United States and Canada as examples of successfully passed policies targeting embodied carbon reporting and reductions. Each case study explores the policy’s development process, the stakeholders engaged, any challenges faced, and lessons learned for the keys to successful adoption.

Policy is an essential step towards creating the scale of action required to rapidly reduce embodied carbon in construction. These policy case studies highlight only a small portion of embodied carbon policy action happening in the Northeast region, and this companion report highlights embodied carbon policies on the Pacific Coast. Looking forward, we expect to see the rapid proposal and adoption of similar policies across North America.

On April 18, Madeline Reeves, Deputy Chief Sustainability Officer, White House Council on Environmental Quality, will report on the Federal Buy Clean Initiative and the leadership role of the federal government in reducing embodied carbon.

Additional speakers include Walter Tersch and Brad Nies from the General Services Administration (GSA), who will report on GSA’s Buy Clean work.

The Federal Government is the largest purchaser in the world, with annual purchasing power of over $630 billion. To harness that procurement power while making historic investments in the nation's infrastructure, President's Biden charged his Administration through his December 2021 Federal Sustainability Plan and Executive Order 14057 to launch a Buy Clean Task Force and initiative to promote use of low-carbon, made in America construction materials. Through Buy Clean, the Federal Government is for the first time prioritizing the use of American-made, lower-carbon construction materials in Federal procurement and Federally-funded projects.

Notes and video from the January 2024 meeting of the Roundtable are posted on the CLF Community.

CLF's Embodied Carbon NGO/Government Roundtable has the following objectives:

• Share news, strategic plans, resources, and tools related to embodied carbon.
• Report planning and future dates for conferences, webinars, and meetings.
• Inspire and facilitate ongoing communication and conversation among key leaders related to embodied carbon.
• Encourage convergence on shared embodied carbon terminology, data standards, benchmarks, and targets for embodied carbon reduction.

Data and Reporting on the Embodied Carbon of MEP Systems

2024 is the Year of Opportunity for MEP 2040, and the first quarterly forum is a signal of what’s to come.

• ASHRAE’s Center of Excellence for Building Decarbonization and MEP2040 recently aligned their efforts, Kent Peterson (ASHRAE Presidential Member) will be joining us to discuss our joint vision for what we hope to accomplish, upcoming ASHRAE decarbonization events, as well as progress within ASHRAE 240P.
• One Click LCA recently released an MEP Carbon Tool and launched a collaboration opportunity with MEP 2040. Panu Pasanen (CEO and Founder, One Click) will be joining us to discuss this opportunity as well as the initial MEP embodied carbon studies performed by the Data Analysis and Reporting group.
• With LEED v5 being announced during Greenbuild this Fall there were several whole life carbon inclusions noted, including reporting of refrigerant and its leakage, Wes Sullens (Director, LEED – US Green Building Council) will be joining us to give an update on the latest news with LEED v5.

Many decarbonization conferences are taking place in 2024! The Steering Committee will preview and highlight conferences with special relevance for MEP engineers.

Impatto sui membri

What is your personal motivation for addressing climate change, and what are you and your organization doing to help reduce embodied carbon emissions?

About the Carbon Leadership Forum at the University of Washington

Chi siamo

• The Carbon Leadership Forum accelerates transformation of the building sector to radically reduce the embodied carbon in building materials and construction.
• We pioneer research, create resources, foster cross-sector collaboration, and incubate member-led initiatives to bring embodied carbon emissions of buildings down to zero.
• We are architects, engineers, contractors, material suppliers, building owners, and policymakers who care about the future and take bold steps to eliminate embodied carbon from buildings and infrastructure.

www.carbonleadershipforum.org

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