Going the Way of T-Rex: Life Cycle Waste and Emissions in Construction Material Manufacturing nrel.gov - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from nrel.gov Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
What is SE 2050?
The Structural Engineers 2050 Challenge (SE 2050) is an initiative designed to educate, engage and measure progress toward net-zero buildings by 2050. The challenge supports the target set by the Paris Climate Agreement to limit the increase of global temperatures well below 2 degrees C. According to the University of Washington’s Carbon Leadership Forum, “the SE 2050 initiative challenges structural engineers to meet embodied carbon benchmarks and increasingly higher reduction targets in a ‘race towards the most efficient building’ as we approach the year 2050.”
The reduction of embodied carbon in structural elements is one of the key strategies towards contributing to a resilient urban built environment.
By Darius Helm The sustainability movement’s drive toward transparency over the last decade has greatly expanded the scope of sustainability, with both a deeper dive into the material use phase and a longer reach upstream into the supply chain and downstream toward end-of-life or cradle-to-cradle reuse. The focus on greener chemistries has heavily influenced the flooring industry’s evolution, and greener building materials in general have helped drive the growth of models for health and wellness, expressed through organizations like the International Living Future Institute, the International Well Building Institute and the Healthy Building Network. But most of the real work lies ahead.