UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The latest episode of the "Growing Impact" podcast features Rahman Azari, an associate professor of architecture and director of the Resource and Energy Efficiency (RE2) Lab. He and his team are working on a seed grant project titled “URB-EC: Urban Embodied Carbon,” which is exploring the best ways to quantify a city’s greenhouse gas emissions from the materials used to create its buildings.
“Embodied carbon is about all construction-related greenhouse gas emissions released during the complete lifecycle of a building from raw material extraction through manufacturing and installation of building materials, to maintenance and demolition of the building in the future,” Azari said. “Urban embodied carbon is about embodied carbon at the scale of a city.”
Azari added that it is important to focus on embodied carbon at the scale of cities because globally, cities generate more than 60% of greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, urban populations are growing worldwide, which will translate into more greenhouse gas emissions as more construction occurs. Finally, some of the materials used in construction can have high impacts on the environment, such as the production of concrete and metals, which account for 11% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
“The goal of the project is to develop methods to use existing data and tools and create a reliable estimation of embodied carbon for cities,” Azari said. “We also aim to identify the factors that drive construction-related greenhouse gas emissions in cities and study their relationships.”
A strategy to reduce embodied carbon in buildings that is oftentimes recommended to architects, planners and engineers is called “Reduce, Reuse, Sequester,” according to Azari.
“We need to reduce material consumption in buildings, and reuse and renovate the existing buildings to the extent we can,” he said. “Low-embodied carbon material alternatives or materials with carbon sequestration capability such as timber can also significantly reduce embodied carbon.”
It is also important to reduce urban embodied carbon through policies.
"We hope to generate knowledge that would help policymakers take actions to limit building carbon emissions in cities,” Azari said.
"Growing Impact" is a podcast by the Institutes of Energy and the Environment (IEE). It features Penn State researchers who have been awarded IEE seed grants and discusses their foundational work as they further their projects. The podcast is available on multiple platforms, including Apple, Google, Amazon and Spotify.