Photo by Shutterstock

WASHINGTON, DC—One-tenth of the world's greenhouse gas emissions spawn from the walls around you—or at least, the construction of them, reports a recent Urban Land Institute report. For example, Portland, OR, is home to America's tallest building made of lightweight timber. By using timber derived from natural forest waste, multifamily developers cut carbon emissions by 223 metric tons—the equivalent of taking 50 cars off the road.

"So often, the industry wants to reduce building efficiencies and electrical efficiencies but the building's carbon footprint is rarely considered," observes Marta Schantz, senior vice president of ULI's Greenprint Center for Building Performance.

In 2018 Microsoft began piloting a new tool with the redevelopment of part of its headquarters in Redmond, WA. It used the tool to calculate the potential carbon footprint for new campus buildings. The firm is using the data throughout the design and construction process to reduce the buildings' carbon emissions by up to 30%.

The tool, known as Embodied Carbon Calculator for Construction or EC3, developed under the leadership of the Carbon Leadership Forum, is a free, open-access tool which allows benchmarking, assessment and reductions in embodied carbon.

"The EC3 tool can be implemented in both the design and procurement phases of a construction project to look at a project's overall embodied carbon emissions, enabling the specification and procurement of the low carbon options," explains Schantz.

Today, the EC3 tool is helping Microsoft track to its goal of a 15%—30% reduction in embodied carbon for its 17 new buildings. They hope to see an uptake in embodied carbon reduction from cities, institutions, and developers thanks to the EC3.

"The aim of the tool is to make embodied carbon reductions achievable and accessible, quickly," says Schantz. "Microsoft's successful pilot sends the message that embodied carbon can be accounted for and reduced in real estate projects."

Now companies, worldwide, can use EC3 on development and redevelopment projects going forward, establishing quantitative metrics and measuring carbon reductions using the latest research.

"Your general contractor can be educated on this tool as well," concludes Schantz. "It's simple and easy to implement."

The tool can be found here.