A 2030 Challenge for Building Product Manufacturers

The 2030 Challenge has just broadened its scope. Formerly focused on the climate impact of building operations (operational carbon), the nonprofit Architecture 2030 has now issued an additional challenge regarding the climate impact of building products (embodied carbon).

The 2030 Challenge for Products aims to reduce the embodied carbon (meaning the carbon emissions equivalent) of building products 50% by 2030. According to the organization, 5%–8% of total energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. result from the manufacture and transport of building products and the construction of buildings. Cutting those emissions in half would be like permanently shutting down 222 coal-fired power plants.

The 2030 plan

With more than 100 different product categories to be addressed, the 2030 Challenge for Products has a lot of details to sort out. Architecture 2030 plans to spend the next two years finalizing product category rules (PCRs), including product-specific carbon benchmarks based on current life-cycle averages, a process the organization hopes will lead to “a harmonization of standards.”

As with the 2030 Challenge for buildings, the 2030 Challenge for Products has started by setting broad guidelines and interim targets. These goals, says Architecture 2030, apply to all new developments, new buildings, and renovations:

• The carbon footprint of covered products should be reduced 30% by 2014; 35% by 2015; 40% by 2020; 45% by 2025; and 50% by 2030.
• Manufacturers wishing to participate will commission a life-cycle assessment (LCA) of at least one product, calculating the carbon footprint; LCA results will be submitted to moderators developing the PCRs for each category, so current industry averages can be established for benchmarking starting in 2014.
• LCAs will be cradle-to-grave profiles and use measurements from actual local energy sources.
• Once benchmarks are established, manufacturers will commission Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), which standardize data across product categories, in order to track their progress toward embodied carbon goals.
• Carbon footprint data for individual products will be available to designers, planners, specifiers, and builders through a variety of channels, including BuildingGreen’s GreenSpec database of products and the Pharos online screening tool.
• Architecture 2030 will not certify products; participation requires manufacturers’ own reporting based on commissioned EPDs.

High stakes

The process may be long and difficult, given the number of product categories under review, but the stakes are high, according to Architecture 2030’s founder Ed Mazria, FAIA. PCRs and the related LCAs are not currently standardized, and this effort could go a long way toward establishing comprehensive, industry-wide norms for a variety of product categories. “Architects and designers have an opportunity to promote low-carbon building products for the projects they design and the hundreds of thousands of products they specify,” Mazria said. “By requiring that building products undergo a rigorous, scientific analysis of their carbon-equivalent footprints, designers can catalyze a movement towards dramatically reducing the embodied greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) of the product sector.”

Once the operational carbon of a building is reduced, as many are working to do, the relative importance of embodied carbon increases. Embodied carbon represents a small percentage (about 10% for a typical office building) of the lifetime carbon footprint of a conventional building, but it represents virtually the entire carbon footprint of a so-called “net-zero” building.

Larry Strain, FAIA, of Siegel & Strain Architects in California, told EBN that carbon from products is of more importance than is commonly recognized. Due to the dynamics of climate change, “The next 10–20 years are going to be critical years in addressing GHG emissions,” he said. “If you look at embodied carbon versus operational carbon over the life of a building—say 100 years—the embodied carbon might represent 10%–15% of the overall carbon. But if you consider embodied carbon over the next 20 years it represents more like 30%–60% of total carbon emitted.”

“Using the power of the pen,” Mazria says, “designers can provide the necessary demand to move this field forward quickly. This is critical in helping us meet the GHG reduction targets established by the scientific community to avert dangerous climate change.”

– Paula Melton

For more information

Architecture 2030
www.architecture2030.org

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IMAGE CREDITS:
1. Source: Adapted by Larry Strain, FAIA, from “Heat,” by George Monbiot
2. Image: Architecture 2030

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