What is the carbon elephant in the room?
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I ran into the "carbon elephant in the room" while researching the book Making Better Buildings. In the book, I was attaching "embodied carbon" figures to a wide range of building materials as one means of comparing environmental impacts.
Embodied carbon is the total greenhouse gas emissions from harvesting, transporting and manufacturing building materials. As I learned when I began to use embodied carbon factors for materials, these emissions can be very significant. In fact, by some estimates, as much as 11% of global emissions come from manufacturing building materials! And on a per-building basis, it's not unusual to have over 500 kg of emissions per square meter of building! I called this the carbon elephant in the room because in 2013, hardly anybody was accounting for this significant amount of emissions. Instead, all the focus was on making buildings more energy efficient. While efficiency is important, reductions in material emissions are immediate and therefore more impactful in reducing atmospheric carbon concentration now, rather than in the future. |
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building materials as carbon capture and storage
My research also led me to realize that building materials made from plant material (and especially waste or residue plant material) typically has extremely low embodied carbon AND is made from 30-60% carbon that the plants drew out of the atmosphere while they were growing. By putting those materials into long-term storage in buildings, it is possible to create a building with zero net embodied carbon or even a carbon-storing building... drawdown buildings!
I am a passionate advocate for using building materials as carbon capture and storage mediums... we can turn buildings from a major climate change problem into a climate drawdown solution!
You can download my Master's thesis, Opportunities for CO2 Capture and Storage in Building Materials, by clicking on the link below...
I am a passionate advocate for using building materials as carbon capture and storage mediums... we can turn buildings from a major climate change problem into a climate drawdown solution!
You can download my Master's thesis, Opportunities for CO2 Capture and Storage in Building Materials, by clicking on the link below...
| magwood_opportunities_for_co2_capture_and_storage_in_building_materials_copy.pdf |
To learn more visit: www.buildersforclimateaction.org
Carbon capture and storage in building materials - INtro videos
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