White House Fact Sheet Highlights CLF Collective Action on Embodied Carbon

Biden-⁠Harris Administration Rallies States, Cities, and Companies to Boost Clean American Manufacturing

White House “Buy Clean” Convening Spurs New Commitments to Reduce Industrial Emissions and Support Made in America Steel, Concrete, and More

At a White House convening today, National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi and Council on Environmental Quality Chair Brenda Mallory will join state leaders to share knowledge and discuss opportunities to collaborate on expanding the purchase of lower-carbon materials made by American workers. Ahead of this convening, the Biden-Harris Administration is announcing a new set of public and private sector commitments aligned with President Biden’s Federal Buy Clean Initiative, which leverages the Federal Government’s power as the largest purchaser in the world to advance low-carbon construction materials across its procurement and funded infrastructure projects.

The White House Fact Sheet describing the meeting references several specific project initiatives of the Carbon Leadership Forum and CLF’s partners, corporate sponsors, and members of the CLF’s NGO/Governmental on Embodied Carbon, including:

• The American Society of Civil Engineers’ Structural Engineering Institute’s “SE 2050”  commits to achieving net zero embodied carbon structural systems by 2050. As of today, the program has 98 structural firms signed onto the commitment across 29 states and the District of Columbia.
• Through “MEP 2040” over 50 Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing (MEP) systems engineer and designer firms commit to achieve net zero carbon in their projects: operational carbon by 2030 and embodied carbon by 2040. Signatories request EPDs in project specifications for all building systems.
• Carbon Leadership Forum has reached a new milestone of 20 volunteer-led embodied carbon Regional Hubs [carbonleadershipforum.org] across 16 states, with Wisconsin convening for the first time today. Strong collaborations with building designers and policymakers have supported their Embodied Carbon educational series and the development of a pilot national database of whole building life cycle analysis models to help building designers and policymakers set informed and ambitious carbon-reduction targets and incentivize high-impact reduction strategies.
• Perkins&Will, the second-largest architecture firm in the world, commits to reducing embodied and operational carbon in the buildings and places it designs. The firm uses tools like the Embodied Carbon Calculator (EC3) and Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) to reduce embodied carbon by 30% or more.
• Central Concrete, a subsidiary of Vulcan Materials Company, the nation’s largest producer of construction aggregates, is collaborating on Buy Clean by continuing to develop mixes and evaluate technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with concrete production, and to partner with local governments on the development of low-carbon building specifications. The company has a proven track record of reducing carbon in concrete by up to 50%.
• Organizations such as Breakthrough Energy, Meta, and Baker Concrete Construction are teaming up through the NEU Center to scale low carbon concrete solutions. The Center will drive adoption of innovative materials and technologies entering the marketplace.
• Arup, a leading global engineering and design firm, commits to lifecycle carbon assessments for all buildings projects, and will help the sector to reach net zero by 2050.