Sustainable Practice
The Basics of Embodied Carbon
If you’re interested in reducing your carbon footprint, you’ve probably thought about carbon emissions in your everyday life. But have you ever considered embodied carbon? Embodied carbon considers the carbon emissions of the entire lifecycle of a product. Read on to learn more how embodied carbon could impact the sustainability goals of your project.
December 7, 2023
Reducing carbon emissions of your home is usually associated with operational carbon, or the carbon your home uses to run heating and cooling, lighting, appliances, etc. But over the last few years, you might have heard whisperings of the term “embodied carbon.”
What is embodied carbon?
Embodied carbon is simply the carbon emitted throughout the whole lifecycle of a product. This means the carbon emitted from raw material extraction, manufacturing, transportation, installation, maintenance, and disposal of building materials.
Imagine the life cycle of a plank of vinyl flooring. Vinyl is a type of plastic and plastic is made from petroleum. So, first oil must be extracted from the ground. Then that oil will be transported to a factory. That factory will manufacture the product and ship it to the project site (if it doesn’t go to a warehouse first) and a contractor will install it. If that flooring is damaged during its lifetime, it must be replaced with newer flooring since it cannot be repaired. The old flooring will likely be taken to the landfill. That product has a carbon impact throughout every stage of its lifecycle.
This is important because embodied carbon represents the up-front carbon emissions of a project while operational carbon is released over time. That means, before your project even begins operating, it already has a large embodied carbon footprint due to the products and construction required to build it.
What can you do?
You know that turning off lights when you’re not using them can help reduce your energy bill, and in turn reduce your operational carbon emissions. But what can you do about embodied carbon emissions?
Here are some things to think about.
Rightsizing
If every material has some sort of carbon impact, then the biggest thing you can do to reduce embodied carbon in your project is to use less materials. Build only what you need to live comfortably, also known as rightsizing. It’s easy to get sucked in by all of the potential bells and whistles and extra space. Do you need them? Will you use them? In general, the smaller the project, the smaller the embodied carbon footprint.
Materials
Once your project is right-sized, identify which materials in your project will have the most embodied carbon. We can run a model to identify those specific materials in your project and help you find lower carbon options. Generally, the biggest carbon offenders are concrete, steel, aluminum, and plastic-based materials. Once you know which products have the highest carbon impact, you can look at switching them out for lower carbon materials.
Sourcing
Consider sourcing materials from your region to reduce transportation distances between the material source, manufacturer, and project site. Support companies that are doing the work to reduce their carbon footprint from manufacturing. Cradle-to-Cradle is a great certification to look out for.
Now, if you get too sucked into considering the impacts of every single material you are going to miss the forest for the trees. Considering embodied carbon is just another tool to help you make informed choices. It’s another factor to consider when picking out what materials to use in your home, like aesthetics, cost, health impacts, efficiency, etc.
The best approach for reducing your project’s carbon emissions is to balance operational and embodied carbon decisions. We are happy to help you weigh your options.
