The building sector—one of the country’s main sources of emissions—must transform the way buildings are designed, constructed, operated, and retrofitted if we are to meet the Biden administration’s 2050 net-zero-economy goal. Many of the practitioners who will be responsible for this work over the next two decades are still in—or have yet to... Read more

The CLF (Carbon Leadership Forum) North American Baseline Report has been updated to provide the most recent embodied carbon data for North American construction materials. Taken from the 2022 Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator (EC3) tool, these baseline data come from third-party environmental product declarations (EPDs) and are used... Read more

Replete with heart-wrenching photos of tiny children sucking on inhalers, enduring insect welts, and watching flood waters rise, a new report from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) details the grueling impacts climate change is having and is likely to have on America’s kids. Socially vulnerable youth will be disproportionately... Read more

Here’s the problem. The economy we’re locked into is linear: to make products, we exploit fellow human beings, deplete natural resources, threaten biodiversity, and choke our atmosphere. Then we toss those products into landfills the moment we consider them to be broken or used up. What a waste.

Here’... Read more

As we move away from our reliance on fossil fuels and toward a low-carbon future, the equipment we use for HVAC systems, kitchens, and other building functions is slowly shifting to all electric. The equipment we use to construct these buildings is another matter.

The carbon impacts from this equipment and other processes on the... Read more

Investors Katie Hall and Tom Steyer founded Galvanize Climate Solutions in 2021 with one goal: “to accelerate the adoption of clean technology and increase the rate of decarbonization.” The company’s new real estate arm aims to do that by acquiring and renovating existing buildings. And to help it find those buildings, Galvanize commissioned a... Read more

People interested in reducing the embodied carbon of buildings are familiar with weighing the impact of different materials, like mass timber or low-carbon concrete. Low-carbon construction has not been on many people’s radar—but it probably should be.

Findings from construction companies that are tracking greenhouse... Read more

Nadav Malin contributed reporting.

Practitioners interested in reducing the embodied carbon of buildings are likely familiar with weighing the impact of different materials, like mass timber or low-carbon concrete. Low-carbon construction, however, has not been on many people’s radar.

“I don't think people up until now even... Read more

Just when you thought you were safe, another big, bold net-zero standard has entered the house. But ASHRAE 228, Standard Method of Evaluating Zero Net Energy and Zero Net Carbon Building Performance, isn’t here to disrupt things. Instead, like any good standard, it just wants to bring us all together in a group bear hug—an embrace with the... Read more

To fulfill our Nation’s promises of justice, liberty, and equality, every person must have clean air to breathe; clean water to drink; safe and healthy foods to eat; and an environment that is healthy, sustainable, climate-resilient, and free from harmful pollution and chemical exposure.

– President Joe Biden, Executive Order 14096 on... Read more

We acknowledge with mournful hearts the death of Robin Guenther, FAIA, a leading expert in evidence-based healthcare design and an early, vocal critic of questionable chemistries that remain all too common in building materials. Robin died of ovarian cancer on May 6, 2023, according to a New York Times obituary.

Robin had long decried... Read more

Electrical and communication cables typically have an insulation layer around the wire and are coated with jacket materials that protect them from damage and improve safety in various applications. There are cables rated for use in standard applications (such as risers) and in plenums, where added flame resistance is necessary. As a result,... Read more

The construction industry has a diversity and discrimination problem, and in January, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) took formal notice. In its recently proposed Strategic Enforcement Plan (SEP), effective from 2023 through 2027, the EEOC explains that it will prioritize discrimination cases in certain industries,... Read more

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed a new rule limiting per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS “forever chemicals”) in drinking water.

PFAS—a class of chemicals used to repel dirt and liquids from carpets and textiles and to make cookware “nonstick”—are ubiquitous in building materials and have been banned in... Read more

The urgency of curbing embodied carbon, the greenhouse gas emissions associated with building materials, continues to escalate. Voluntary rating systems have been working away at the issue for more than a decade. More recently, states like California, several cities, and some U.S. agencies started adopting “buy clean” policies... Read more

Pozzotive glass pozzolan won a 2023 Innovative Product or Service award at the recent National Ready Mixed Concrete Association (NRMCA) conference in Las Vegas. As part of  NRMCA’s Build With Strength sustainability initiative, the organization gives out awards for products that show a “commitment to improving the resilience,... Read more

There is now more information available than ever about how our climate is likely to change. Why aren’t architects using those projections to design safer, more resilient buildings?

The University of Minnesota Climate Adaptation Partnership (MCAP) and HGA recently conducted a study to answer that... Read more

The race to address climate change has had a profound impact on the concrete industry as it attempts to lower its historically high embodied carbon. Low-carbon concretes are now available for most applications. They are not a one-size-fits-all low-carbon solution, however, which makes the specification process more challenging... Read more

Interior paint can be a source of VOCs and other contaminants, and some may not be durable enough for intended applications. Interior paints have to balance low emissions and toxicity with durability and performance. If paint needs to be reapplied too often, it wastes resources and exposes workers and building occupants to additional VOCs.... Read more

When I was a kid in the ’80s, the constant threat of nuclear apocalypse kept my friends and me up at night. At the same time, the probability of full-scale thermonuclear warfare was small. So we kids put our trust in the adults in power and forgot about it most of the time. Anxious nights aside, we listened to Casey Kasem on... Read more