What is Embodied Carbon?

• What is Embodied Carbon?
• Inflation Reduction Act
• Grant Program
• Tools, Resources and Funding Opportunities
• Label Program for Low Embodied Carbon Construction Materials

The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act invests billions of dollars to reduce industrial emissions, including $350 million to support EPA’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from construction materials. 

EPA is implementing a multi-pronged program to help federal purchasers and other buyers find and buy cleaner, more climate-friendly construction materials and products, the production of which accounts for 15% of annual global greenhouse gas emissions. 

Embodied carbon refers to the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the production (the extraction, transport, and manufacturing) stages of a product’s life. (Many initiatives to track, disclose, and reduce embodied carbon emissions also consider emissions associated with the use of a product and its disposal.)

Embodied Carbon of Construction Materials

Reducing embodied carbon from construction materials is essential to effectively address climate change.

In the United States, billions of tons of concrete, asphalt, steel, glass and other construction materials and products are used annually to construct, maintain, and operate roads, highways, bridges, offices, and houses, schools, and parks, among other infrastructure. While construction materials and products have numerous social and economic benefits, they currently have significant environmental costs:

• The U.S. industrial sector is linked to more than 30% of annual U.S. greenhouse emissions.
• Worldwide, the manufacture of construction materials and products accounts for 15% of annual global greenhouse gas emissions.

Four Key Materials

Under this program, EPA is focusing on a subset of construction materials because of the high greenhouse gas emissions associated with their production and the large quantities purchased by the federal government:  

• Concrete and cement 
• Glass 
• Asphalt mix 
• Steel 

Additionally, EPA is examining strategies to further reduce embodied greenhouse gas emissions through the use of other materials, including salvaged and reused materials, aluminum, and wood. 

How Can Public Procurement Incentivize Purchases of Lower Carbon Construction Materials?

The U.S. federal government is the world’s largest purchaser, spending approximately $760 billion every year on goods and services. In fact, approximately half of the concrete produced in the United States is used for publicly funded projects. The power of the federal pocketbook can be used to move markets towards more environmentally preferable options. 

To cut climate pollution linked to the production of construction products and materials and achieve net zero emissions for the federal government by 2050, the Biden-Harris Administration launched the Federal Buy Clean Initiative, which leverages federal procurement and funding to catalyze markets for American-made lower embodied carbon construction materials while making historic investments to upgrade U.S. transportation, buildings, and energy infrastructure.

Buy Clean policies and programs related to construction materials generally require disclosures of the environmental - and especially the embodied carbon - impacts of these products. These impacts are typically disclosed through Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs).  

Agencies are working to identify actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and climate change impacts comprehensively, related to building and transportation infrastructure construction, including optimizing salvage, reuse, and low embodied carbon materials.

The Inflation Reduction Act directs EPA and partner agencies to develop strategies to support enhanced standardization, measurement, reporting and verification of EPDs to drive the market of lower embodied carbon construction materials.

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