Why We Need Embodied Carbon Benchmarks and Targets in Building Standards and Policies: An Open Letter
Why We Need Embodied Carbon Benchmarks and Targets in Building Standards and Policies: An Open Letter
Architect Kelly Alvarez Doran led a master's studio on what it would take to cut the embodied carbon of Toronto's MURBs in half. Here's what they found.
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To Canadian Municipalities and Associations of Architects, Engineers, and Planners:
Canada, as well as a growing number of its jurisdictions, has set necessarily ambitious carbon reduction targets as part of an increasingly urgent global bid to achieve climate stability. While the spotlight often falls on the transportation and energy production sectors, 40 percent of global carbon emissions comes from the construction and operation of buildings. We are becoming increasingly aware that a big part of the issue—11 percent of global emissions—comes from the embodied carbon of the materials that go into the new buildings constructed each year.