Sustainable Pittsburgh and CEOs for Sustainability will host two educational events on March 10 and 15 on embodied carbon, the carbon dioxide emissions associated with materials and construction processes through the whole lifecycle of a building or infrastructure.

You have a handle on the greenhouse gas emissions associated with your organization’s operations, and maybe you’ve even inventoried them as a basis for your carbon-reduction strategy.

But what about emissions generated over the life cycle of the buildings you operate from? How about emissions generated over the entire life cycle of your products?

According to Architecture 2030, embodied carbon will account for almost half of total new construction emissions between now and 2050. That makes for an incredible opportunity to reduce the emissions associated with buildings, from the extraction, manufacture, and selection of the building materials through construction processes to occupancy.

Suppliers of building materials have reduced their carbon emissions and achieved market advantage through Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), attesting to their low-carbon designs.

Following this strategy, manufacturers from other sectors are evaluating ways to reduce embodied carbon.

Brands as diverse as Logitech, Dove soap, Lipton teas, and Adidas are moving toward carbon footprint labels on their products.

What are the opportunities for your organization?

March 10

During this online session, the program will cover –

-- What is embodied carbon, and what are some opportunities for reducing it through our building construction and renovation decisions?

-- What are some tools for conducting a life cycle analysis (LCA) of emissions for your products and services?

-- What are the marketing advantages of an EPD or product carbon footprint label, how do you get one, and what are the benefits of EPD Optimization?

Featured speakers include--

-- Victoria Herrero-Garcia, LEED AP BD+C, Senior Sustainability and Carbon Project Manager at Ambient Energy

-- Greg Kingsley, Ph.D., P.E., President and CEO at KL&A Engineers and Builders

-- Jim Mellentine, LCACP, Principal at Thrive ESG and Adjunct Professor in Sustainable Design at Thomas Jefferson University

Click Here to register or for more information.  This event will be held via Zoom from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m.

March 15

At this event, we will explore what embodied carbon is, how it relates to operational carbon, what it means for existing buildings, and how building operators can take advantage of retrofit opportunities to maintain low embodied carbon throughout the life of their buildings.

The speakers represent local expertise related to products and materials, sustainable building standards, building science, and operations--

-- Alex Co is co-founder of the Carbon Leadership Forum Pittsburgh and a research manager at the International Living Future Institute.

-- Julia Wattick is a member of the Carbon Leadership Forum and an associate at BranchPattern.

-- Camila Rivera-Tinsley is the director of education for the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy.  She leads its growing slate of all-ages environmental education programming and also helms the Frick Environmental Center, the first publicly owned Living Building in the United States.

This event will be held at the Frick Environmental Center in Pittsburgh from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. and include coffee, light breakfast, and a building tour of one of the greenest buildings in the world.

Advanced registration is required and COVID protocols will be communicated with all registered participants in advance. If necessary, the event will be shifted from in-person to online.

Click Here to register.

Visit the websites of Sustainable Pittsburgh and CEOs for Sustainability to learn more about their initiative, upcoming events and how you can get involved.

[Posted: February 11, 2022]

2/14/2022