Projects must both reduce and offset embodied carbon. Reductions can be achieved through building or material reuse, material quantity reductions, or product alternatives. Projects must demonstrate reductions to primary materials through identified intentional actions and quantify reductions using a baseline specific to a typical design of that project’s typology. An approved life cycle assessment software must be used in order to quantify the project’s total embodied carbon and to verify claimed reductions to primary materials. The impacts of both the primary and interior materials must be included in the project’s total embodied carbon, and subsequently, third-party verified carbon offsets must be procured based on this total quantity.
The sections below provide detailed guidance on satisfying the embodied carbon requirements.
