What is the Embodied Carbon Policy Reduction Calculator?
The Policy Reduction Calculator is a tool developed by the Carbon Leadership Forum to provide policymakers with data-driven insights on low-carbon policies. It allows decision-makers to:
- Establish basic estimates of the business-as-usual embodied carbon impacts of a jurisdiction over time,
- Create and customize embodied carbon reduction policies using four basic policy frameworks, and
- Compare the relative reduction potential of each created policy to the business-as-usual baseline.
Getting Started
Getting started with the Policy Reduction Calculator is easy! To begin:
- Use the tabs on the left-hand of the screen to navigate the tool
- Create a baseline by selecting a state and timeframe for the assessment
- Select and customize reduction policies and compare the results to your chosen baseline
- Explore the relative differences between different policy solutions for reducing embodied carbon!
Outcomes
Using this tool will allow policymakers to have a more in-depth understanding of the estimated reducition potential of different kinds of embodied carbon policies, including:
- Material policies (Product GWP limits for concrete and steel)
- Whole building life cycle assessment policies (Building Reduction Target policies and Building Embodied Carbon Budget policies)
- Reuse policies (incentives for renovating and adapting existing buildings instead of building new)
The goal of this tool will be to provide decision-makers with the data they need to support and evaluate impactful embodied carbon policy.
Context
The Embodied Carbon Policy Reduction Calculator is an extension of the proof-of-concept study completed by the Carbon Leadership Forum and C40 Cities in 2022. Since then, there have been significant improvements in data quality and methodologies for calculating embodied carbon reductions at the building level. This tool builds off this progress to provide policymakers with up-to-date data and methodologies for calculating jurisdiction-level embodied carbon projections.
Disclaimers
This tool provides indicative and directional emissions for a particular jurisdiction. They are NOT a substitute for measured greenhouse gas emissions for a specific jurisdiction. Furthermore, this is an embodied carbon-focused tool, and does not account for operational carbon emissions (measured in Life cycle stage B6), which can be significant. Lastly, carbon is also not the only consideration in real-world policies: feasibility, environmental impact, labor impact, community relations, and many other factors all contribute to the creation of just, effective policy, and are not calculated within this tool.
Full documentation of the capabilities, methods, data sources, assumptions, and limitations for this calculator are available on the “Documentation” tab. Author contributions and a suggested citation are available on the “About” tab.