Embodied Carbon

Verification matters as we scale our progress. I suppose we never really know where our careers will take us, but I have recently realized with considerable surprise that despite my training as an environmentalist and building scientist, I have found myself learning how to become, well, an accountant. Not a normal financial accountant, but rather a carbon accountant. Along with…

At Living Future this year, in my hometown of Atlanta, I kicked off the conference by sharing 10 things that are on my mind. Here’s a recap. While you all are out there designing products, building buildings, doing innovative research, writing policy, I spend a lot of my time on movement strategy work, along with my colleagues and our co-conspirators….

I have a small confession to make. I am a chronic sufferer of a very common but pernicious syndrome: FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). As a youngest child and part of the first generation to experience the internet in our youth, I have had a life-long anxiety that I’m being left out of something very important and very fun. It has its downsides, and…

After years of collaboration amongst various individual groups, built environment industry leaders came together for the first time at one table on March 14th, 2023, in Seattle, Washington, to discuss a potential coalition to accelerate and strategize how to reduce embodied carbon in the built environment rapidly. The group was composed of representatives from a set of NGOs and professional…

Living Future member Anne Torney discusses Mithun projects and provides her insights on affordable and sustainable housing, climate change, and embodied carbon in concrete.

Authors note: Embodied carbon is now part of the Declare label! To learn more about embodied carbon and the Zero Carbon Certification read below and contact us at zc.support@living-future.org. In recent decades the building sector’s focus on creating energy-efficient buildings run by renewable energy has been essential in pushing the building industry towards more sustainable practices. We believe the building…

PRESS RELEASE: Regenerative Retrofit: California’s First Living Building New book from industry leader in green building performance explores building reuse, water and energy independence, biophilic design, and a carbon-free future.  SEATTLE, WA., September 23, 2020—Ecotone Publishing, the industry’s original green architecture and design publisher, today announced the release of the seventh book in the Living Building Challenge Series titled Regenerative…

Editor’s note: We’re so honored to have an article contributed this month by one of our Sponsors, Armstrong Ceiling & Wall Solutions. You can learn more about them and their courage to pursue meaningful change in the article below, and you can also learn more about work like this and how you can make a difference, at this year’s Living…

Earlier this year, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) launched its 2020 Plan of Work, a comprehensive guidance document that organises the process of briefing, designing, constructing, and operating buildings into eight stages. The most significant revision in the 2020 plan is the inclusion of a Sustainability Project Strategy that is linked to the RIBA 2030 Climate Challenge. While…

As climate action becomes more urgent, there is a growing focus on embodied carbon within the built environment. An increasing amount of architects, engineers, and researchers are collaborating to establish common practices around the definition and reduction of embodied carbon as to produce fully decarbonized, or true Zero Carbon projects. The International Living Future Institute has created the Embodied Carbon…