While operational emissions have long been a focus, embodied carbon—the emissions generated throughout the life cycle of building materials, from extraction and manufacturing to transportation, installation, maintenance, and end-of-life—represents a significant and often overlooked part of a building’s environmental footprint.
This session offers a comprehensive introduction to embodied carbon. You’ll explore how embodied carbon dominates life-cycle emissions as building energy efficiency increases and energy sources decarbonize. This understanding will help you make design decisions related to massing and material choices that will help you reduce the embodied carbon in your building projects and support compliance with jurisdictional regulations.
What you’ll learn
- Understand embodied carbon, its role in the overall carbon footprint of buildings across their life cycles, and how your design decisions impact the amount of embodied carbon in your design.
- Identify key life cycle stages—including material extraction, manufacturing, construction, use, and end-of-life—where embodied carbon emissions occur.
- Identify strategies to reduce embodied carbon in building projects.
- Understand how reducing embodied carbon will help you comply with current and future federal, provincial, and municipal climate goals and regulations.
