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Embodied Carbon a Clearer View of Carbon Emissions Embodied Carbon Urgency

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Embodied Carbon a Clearer View of Carbon Emissions Embodied Carbon Urgency STEWARDSHIP REPORT EMBODIED CARBON A CLEARER VIEW OF CARBON EMISSIONS EMBODIED CARBON URGENCY THE DESIGN COMMUNITY IS MAKING GREAT STRIDES to create buildings that are more energy efficient, increasingly electrified, and powered by an electrical grid As design professionals, we shape the built with growing contributions from renewable sources. Although these interventions reduce carbon emissions from building operations, we must also consider the upfront world. Hence, we should be cognizant of the emissions from building construction—embodied carbon. While operational emission reductions are often celebrated, embodied emissions carbon footprint of our design solutions. We have been largely overlooked. Embodied emissions include emissions associated with extracting, processing, shipping, installing, and maintaining the materials used in need to use carbon-smart materials and aspire our buildings. These emissions occur before a building opens rather than operational to be climate positive. At Walter P Moore, we emissions that happen over a building’s life span. The UN Environment Global Status Report predicts that during the next 40 years, we have made this commitment and are driven by will build 2.5 trillion square feet of new building stock. Comparatively, this amount of construction is the equivalent of replicating New York City every month for 40 years. the challenge. To reach the greenhouse gas targets set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we must significantly reduce the embodied carbon of buildings constructed during the next 10 years and reach net zero embodied and operational carbon soon after. —Dilip Choudhuri, PE President & CEO Addressing this urgent environmental challenge will require cross-disciplinary Walter P Moore collaboration, client education, industry advocacy, development of carbon benchmarks, and innovative low-carbon solutions. 3 STEWARDSHIP REPORT EMBODIED CARBON CONTENTS The built sector has a vital role to play in responding “ EMBODIED CARBON MILESTONES to the climate emergency. With buildings currently 06 responsible for 39% of global carbon emissions, decarbonizing the sector is one of the most cost-effective WHY EMBODIED CARBON MATTERS ways to mitigate the worst effects of climate breakdown.” 08 10 Measuring Embodied Carbon 20 Salvaged Materials —World Green Building Council 12 Addressing Data Uncertainty 22 Timber and Carbon 14 Role of Grid Decarbonization 24 Emerging Concrete Technologies 16 The Impact of Shipping: Beyond the 26 The Carbon Cost of Water Regional Radius 28 Enclosure Impact: Balancing Operations 18 Building Reuse: Transformation and Embodied Carbon Times of change and challenges allow us to reassess our traditional practices for a Purpose and develop new solutions. This Stewardship Report focuses on an issue of relevance for all material specifiers, and that is an essential part of making near-term reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Throughout this report, our experts will address: What embodied carbon is, and why we must reduce it. Walter P Moore understands the importance of embodied carbon. Since 2002 we have actively embraced our role as engineers seeking to reduce 30 DECARBONIZATION IN PRACTICE the embodied carbon of our designs. We continue to improve the design process, refine material specifications, and participate in many industry- leading activities, to both bring awareness and achieve meaningful 32 Putting It All Together: Net Zero Operations 36 Leveraging What We Have: The Importance reductions in embodied carbon in the built environment. This includes our and Reduced Embodied Carbon of Saving Our Existing Buildings long-term involvement in the Carbon Leadership Forum, leadership on Houston Advanced Research Center Mickey Leland Federal Building USGBC committees, founding roles in both CLF regional hubs and the SE 34 Shaping the System: Lessons From Beta 38 What You Don’t See Matters: The Impact 2050 Initiative, and our sponsorship of the EC3 tool. Testing to Improve LEED of Foundation System Selection Bank of America Tower Toyota Motor North America Research and We encourage you to engage with this report, explore resources and tools, Development Center and continue the dialogue. There is room for change in every project. Dirk Kestner, PE, LEED AP BD+C, ENV SP Director of Sustainable Design HOW DO WE GET TO ZERO? Principal 40 [email protected] 4 5 STEWARDSHIP REPORT EMBODIED CARBON EMBODIED CARBON MILESTONES THE ORACLE WATERFRONT CAMPUS APOGEE STADIUM BANK OF AMERICA TOWER The Austin, Texas campus opens and is among the first in the Austin The first newly constructed football The mat foundation placement Energy Green Building rating stadium in the U.S. to achieve LEED takes place. This tower, which will system to achieve the Whole Platinum certification opens at the eventually become the highest- Building LCA credit. This credit University of North Texas. Walter P Moore rated LEED Platinum LEED v4 informed material procurement and PILOT SPONSOR OF THE EC3 TOOL uses embodied carbon coefficients from project in the world, uses WBLCA embodied carbon reduction and the University of Bath’s Inventory of Carbon to optimize concrete to reduce Walter P Moore becomes one was key to the projects’ LEED Gold and Energy (ICE) to inform design strategy embodied carbon. The optimized of eight Pilot Sponsors of the and AEGB 4-star ratings. and quantify the project’s embodied THE DUKE UNIVERSITY MEDICAL PAVILION concrete mix saves over 1 million Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator (EC3) tool. The EC3 tool carbon reductions. The project saves over The pavilion opens and achieves LEED lbs. CO2 in the foundation alone. is free to access and was developed 6 million lbs. CO2. Gold Certification. Walter P Moore with input from nearly 50 industry leads the pursuit of LEED Pilot Credit partners that allows benchmarking, #1, the first inclusion of WBLCA and assessment, and reductions in embodied carbon quantification in the embodied carbon. LEED rating system. 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 HARC HEADQUARTERS GROUNDBREAKING CLASSES OF CONCRETE THE SE2050 COMMITMENT SUSTAINABILITY GUIDELINES Walter P Moore implements the use This project, which uses WBLCA to Walter P Moore joins with other of “Classes of Concrete” matrix. This evaluate structural and enclosure leading structural engineering firms Sustainability Guidelines for the tool, implemented on all new structural systems will become The Woodland’s and the SEI Sustainability Commit- Structural Engineer, the first design projects, allows teams to tailor first LEED Platinum building. THE CARBON LEADERSHIP FORUM tee to present an initial vision of the guideline devoted to the structural performance requirements, including Currently, it operates as Net Positive engineer’s role in sustainable design SE2050 Commitment at the Annual environmental metrics, to minimize Walter P Moore joins the and has achieved ILFI Net Zero and edited by Walter P Moore’s SEI Structures Congress. This vision embodied carbon on projects. Carbon Leadership Forum, an Energy certification. Director of Sustainable Design serves as the foundation for the industry-academic collaboration Dirk Kestner, is released. eventual formalization of SE2050. hosted at the University of Washington working to accelerate transformation of the building sector to radically reduce and ultimately eliminate embodied carbon in building materials and construction. 6 7 EMBODIED CARBON In the World Green Building Council’s report, WHY EMBODIED Bringing Embodied Carbon Upfront, they brought long-standing issues surrounding carbon footprint to the forefront. They embraced a bold vision CARBON MATTERS that by 2050, new buildings, infrastructure, and renovations will have net zero embodied carbon, and all buildings, including existing buildings, must be net zero operational carbon. While this is a sizable goal, there are steps that we in the design community have already taken and must continue to evolve as we pursue these aspirations. Walter P Moore’s experts explore issues surrounding embodied carbon and expose solutions for future growth. 9 STEWARDSHIP REPORT EMBODIED CARBON Extraction From Nature Material Extraction Emission To Nature Manufacturing MEASURING + Production Recycling Cradle to EMBODIED CARBON grave by Dirk Kestner PE, LEED AP BD+C, ENV SP Construction Cradle to grave “IF YOU CAN’T MEASURE IT, YOU CAN’T IMPROVE IT.” When comparing products, it is important that they be Peter Drucker’s quote is well known in the business world functionally equivalent, or that they perform the same and is critically important for tracking embodied carbon. function, or functions, and have the same expected life A fundamental piece of tracking embodied carbon span. LCA is performed per ISO standards to maintain is using consistent decisions and assumptions for its consistency and transparency in the process. LCA can measurement throughout the material's lifespan. Relevant incorporate industry wide data, but becomes increasingly Disposal life cycle stages include extraction, manufacturing, accurate as suppliers provide product specific data such processing, transportation, construction and installation, Use as processes and fuel sources. maintenance, and demolition, recycling, or end of life. LCA can also be applied to the built environment. When What is LCA? applied to multiple assemblies at the building level, it is Demolition Maintenance Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a method of referred to as a Whole Building Life Cycle Assessment
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