Following on my last post about designing highly sustainable buildings, I would like to delve a bit deeper into why I think it is important to analyze the embodied carbon footprint of buildings.
This video assembled by the Endeavour Center in Canada presents the facts very graphically and succinctly.
And there are more resources available at www.buildersforclimateaction.org
How can a building truly have negative embodied carbon if you consider the whole life cycle of the material?
For thousands of years people built buildings out of materials that sequester carbon using zero fossil fuels, but it didn’t reduce atmospheric carbon levels.
But if something is sequestering carbon, it is still reducing whatever amount is caused by humans. Probably not going to tip the scales in our current era, but is still worthwhile to consider, especially if cost reduction can be achieved at the same time.