October 2025 NGO/Government Roundtable on Embodied Carbon

Roundtable: NGO/Government Alignment
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The 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.

Should your organization be a member? Contact Andrew Himes.

Agenda

  • CLF Staff Report - Rachelle Habchi
  • Julie Janiski - MEP 2040 “Beginner’s Guide to Embodied Carbon” plus Pilot Project
  • Colleen Loader - Canada Green Building Council
  • Mahsa Torabi - Life Cycle Lab, University of Washington
  • Willy Carlsen - WRI Industry Team
  • Irene Dominguez - Bellona Europa
  • Victor Olgyay - RMI
  • Lee Thrasher - Georgia Ready Mixed Concrete Association (GRMCA)
  • Andrea Cooper - Living Future

CLF Staff Report - Rachelle Habchi

  • Embodied Carbon Pathways to 2050 for the United States – Collab between CLF, UW LCL, and RMI

  • Aimed to address three questions

    • First, where are we headed? Using material intensity and historic material consumption data, we established a business-as-usual projection for US embodied carbon to 2050.
    • Second, what trajectory is needed instead to meet global climate targets to keep below 1.5°C of warming?
    • And third, which strategies and policies are most likely to help close the gap between these two trajectories? To answer that, we leveraged existing research on industrial and building decarbonization and demand reduction strategies.

  • Projected US Carbon (A1 - A3) - Business as Usual

    • The business-as-usual projected US embodied carbon for infrastructure (including concrete, asphalt, steel, sand, and gravel) and buildings. These projections are cradle-to-grave, focusing on the manufacturing impacts from 30 key construction materials.
    • Concrete plays a large role, making up 66% of projected infrastructure emissions and 38% of A1-A3 emissions for new buildings. Asphalt, steel, insulation, and aluminum also played a large role.

  • Target ECIs based on downscaled 1.5 °C aligned scenarios

    • RMI led this portion of the analysis, downscaling the global carbon budgets established by the IPCC for the US to the US construction sector and then to specific building types. RMI’s analysis includes three different attribution principles to downscale.
    • These trajectories emphasize that we need to act urgently to close the gap between a median building and the trajectory we need to stay within global carbon budgets.
    • Comparing 2025 targets against the CLF Benchmarking Study provided more of an optimistic view … For multifamily residential, the 1.5 aligned target for 2025 is just above the 25th percentile for projects in the benchmarking study. And for office, there are 1 or 2 buildings in our benchmarking dataset close to the current target. Meaning that projects are meeting these targets today!

  • Scenario analysis

    • Mapped specific strategies to each of the 30 materials, with specific reduction potential ranges per material. These strategies generally fall into the categories of energy, carbon capture, material substitution, circularity, and material-efficient design.
    • 6 different scenarios that used different assumptions for how optimistic we were about the reduction potential of each strategy we looked at (within the range cited in literature), as well as testing different levels of deployment.
    • While we dug into scenarios that went all in on design, energy, circularity, or R&D, none of these focus areas on its own was enough. Only the best-case scenario, where all strategies are employed, is enough to get close to targets.

  • Best-case scenario

    • In both infrastructure and new buildings, you can see a drop associated with rapid adoption of available best practices. These are strategies (maxing out SCMs in concrete, structural system material efficiency and substitution, using better insulation, using clean power in factories that are already powered by electricity, and many others) that are technically feasible today.
    • Around 2045, you start to see the impact of emerging technology scaling.

  • Report Findings - Strategies

    • Scaling best practices now while investing in emerging technologies is key. We can’t wait for emerging technologies to save us. We have to focus on scaling best practices now. But we also expect some newer technologies to help us close the gap between targets as we approach 2050.
    • A portfolio of strategies is required. There is no silver bullet. Some of the most impactful strategies were:
      • Cement and clinker substitution in concrete, Use of low-carbon electricity in steel production, Structural design optimization and material substitution, Cement kiln energy efficiency and carbon capture and storage (CCS), Reuse/refurbishment of existing concrete buildings and infrastructure
    • Design matters. Strategies like structural design optimization and material substitution that require changes in design and coordination with architects and engineers offer large, near-term gains, and even more is that we already know how to do these things. We also need to look into more design strategies for infrastructure.

  • Report Findings - Policy

    • Policies can help create an environment where these changes on projects are more affordable, better understood, and it is not on individual designers to ask for changes, but rather part of the requirements building or infrastructure owners are bringing to the table from day one.
    • The report assesses 32 federal, state, local, and private sector policy tools. The most impactful policies include:

  • Building-level embodied carbon standards (e.g., kgCO₂e/m² limits in codes)

  • Financing and incentives for facility upgrades and raw material substitution

  • Product-level emissions standards (e.g. Clean Product Standards, product-level GWP limits in zoning and building codes)

  • Carbon pricing (e.g., cap-and-trade, border adjustments)

  • Building-level standards are a key complement to industrial regulations

  • Cap-and-trade systems and carbon border adjustment mechanisms provide flexible pathways for incentivizing facility changes

  • Product vs. facility standards: Product emissions standards had a higher impact than facility standards due to their ability to incentivize raw material substitution (*cement and clinker substitution)

Julie Janiski - MEP 2040 “Beginner’s Guide to Embodied Carbon” plus Pilot Project

  • MEP2040 is a movement to radically reduce total carbon emissions associated with building systems through collective action
  • Published the Beginner’s Guide to MEP Embodied Carbon
    • ~ 15 co-authors – a cross-industry collaborative effort
    • A consolidated guide to performing quantity takeoffs for MEP system components, as well as US/global-based LCA phase calculation for MEP systems
    • A single whole life carbon MEP study (Wymer Hall)
    • What it’s not:
      • A comprehensive guide to measuring all MEP system components, we have purposely excluded air terminals, etc., with a thought of adhering to the Pareto principle in these early days
      • A definitive benchmark for the embodied carbon to expect for MEP systems across all buildings (try not to quote numbers or quote them in context!)
  • Working on publishing results on MEP2040 Whole Life Carbon Pilot
    • Map out whole life carbon once you include MEP systems, based on the Beginner’s Guide
    • Diverse building use represented in the case studies – be able to pull mini trends from some building use types!
  • MEP has been embedded in the built environment space and in certification programs, as MEP2040 has gained traction and made an impact

Colleen Loader - Canada Green Building Council

Mahsa Torabi - Life Cycle Lab, University of Washington

  • POD|LCA Project – 3 years at UW, funded by ARPA-E
  • Parametric Open Data for LCA – Simplifying and supporting standardization of LCA with open source LCA tools. How do we know if a carbon-storing material is actually low-carbon?
  • Target Audience:
    • Material scientists and manufacturers of novel carbon-storing materials
    • Building scale LCA tool developers and standards, unifying assumptions and supporting advanced analysis
    • Policymakers and investors who want to have accurate and fair comparisons
  • Scope
    • Dynamic radiative forcing
    • Regionally specific end-of-life of biogenic products
    • Probabilistic assessment of variability and uncertainty
    • Building scale scenario explorers
    • Supporting open data ecosystems
    • Electrical grid decarbonization scenarios
  • POD|LCA hierarchy (top to bottom):
    • Web tools: data explorer dashboards
    • Desktop tools:
      • Material LCA screening tool
      • Builldings grasshopper tool
    • Python API
      • Impact data
      • Transportation
      • Electricity
      • End-of-life
      • Dynamic radiative forcing
      • Building model
      • Analysis
    • Methods, Models, and Data: the methods, models and data behind the POD|LCA Framework will be openly available on the POD|LCA Project website (URL tbd)
  • Contacts:

Willy Carlsen - WRI Industry Team

Irene Dominguez - Bellona Europa

Victor Olgyay - RMI

  • RMI Reducing Embodied Carbon in Buildings
  • RESNET 1550 Standard public comment period closed for 2nd draft
    • Aiming to publish in Q1 2026
  • Economics of Embodied Carbon “Part 2” report aiming for publication early 2026. Splicing feedback on what info would be useful to see.
  • Benchmark study of affordable homes in India aiming for first results by the end of this year. Collecting data is a major challenge
    • RMI is shifting some work to India and other areas where there is an opportunity for higher impact in EC in construction reduction
  • Actions:
  • PEER – US Partnerships for Embodied Emissions Reductions Group
    • Collaboration with RMI, Columbia University, ULI, Green Market Activation, and Built Buildings Lab
    • Carbon Ledger – prioritizing the value of whole life carbon in CRE
    • Book and Claim – draft framework for buyers to engage in the environmental attribute certificate market
    • With engagement from developers, finance experts, embodied carbon leaders, and others, these initiatives aim to unlock large capital flows for ec reduction by building finance-ready carbon data layers for whole life carbon in commercial real estate

Lee Thrasher - Georgia Ready Mixed Concrete Association (GRMCA)

  • CTAC program aimed at improving adherence to concrete acceptance testing standards
    • Mobile app platform that CO – challenges with acceptance testing for concrete
    • A tool to use to take data and provide various support and information
  • GRMCA – uses CTAC as support for sustainable design education
    • Barrier of the acceptance testing process in sustainable material education
    • Sustainable design opportunities with novel concrete materials – specifically cement – couple with testing side to break down barriers to testing of sustainable materials
    • Gathering data and case studies to aggregate across the state to identify gaps and opportunities across GA
  • ASTM Workshop

Andrea Cooper - Living Future

  • VP of Buildings
  • Zero Carbon Pilot Program (formally launched 3 weeks ago)
    • Zero Carbon Certificate Program
    • Living Future is seeking pilot projects to utilize our new zero-carbon certification pathways, including existing buildings
    • Technical requirements: operational carbon, future refrigerants, embodied carbon, energy resilience
      • Measurement, reporting, and offset of carbon
    • Building typologies: new buildings, building renovations, interiors (existing), and existing buildings (pilot program addition)
    • Pilot eligibility criteria
      • Work directly with LF to share feedback
      • Buildings that have been in operation for 12 months or more
      • Able to report data by the end of 2027 for initial data, performance data by 2029