California Air Resources Board

Principal Investigator/Author: Eric Masanet

Contractor: University of California, Santa Barbara

Contract Number: 22STC014

Project Status: Active

Relevant CARB Programs: Building Decarbonization 

Topic Areas: Sustainable Communities;  Climate Change; Building Decarbonization; Embodied Carbon

Research Summary:

The main objective of this study is to support CARB with the implementation of Assembly Bill (AB) 2446 (Holden, Chapter 352, Statutes of 2022), which requires CARB to develop a framework for reducing embodied carbon in the California building sector. The framework includes establishing a measuring and tracking mechanism and developing a comprehensive strategy to achieve a 40-percent net carbon reduction of building materials. Specifically, this project will review data, quantifications, existing and emerging low-carbon technologies, low-carbon design and construction practices, and global policies to better understand the scales and sources of embodied carbon emissions associated with California’s building materials and the potential technology, construction, design, and policy strategies for reaching the reduction targets required by AB 2446. The outputs of this project include brief memos on study methodologies, two whitepaper drafts that discuss available data, embodied carbon ranges for key materials and products and the state of global policies, and databases of available embodied carbon data for construction products and materials and global policies.

Keywords: building decarbonization, embodied carbon, low-carbon building materials, AB2446 white papers