Accounting for the Embodied Carbon of Residential Retrofits

This is a tale of two companies on a quest to account for the embodied carbon impacts of energy retrofits, and to incorporate these impacts into the project planning process. How do we decide when embodied emissions are worth longer-term emission reductions? What are the pros and cons of choosing lower embodied carbon materials compared to higher emission ones? How do carbon-smart choices relate to other project goals and requirements?  The speakers will address these questions through case studies and will share measured savings for projects with at least one year of pre and post retrofit energy use data, and modeled savings for projects without this data. By considering operational and embodied carbon impacts, we can optimize our practices to realize deep climate impact reductions.

Session Speaker(s): 

Jacob Deva Racusin
Rachel White

Session Chair(s): 

Rachelle Ain
Bruce Friedman

Event Time: 

Thursday, August 13, 2020 - 11:00am to 12:00pm

Room / Location:
Harbor I

Experience Level: 

2 (some prior experience/knowledge helpful)

CEU Information: 

AIA 1.0 LU/HSW
BPI 1.0 hour
MA CSL 1.0 hour, Energy

Learning Objectives:

  • Identify low-embodied carbon and carbon storing materials and techniques for retrofit projects
  • Understand how to calculate the carbon payback of retrofit projects
  • Incorporate embodied carbon into residential retrofit project planning
  • Evaluate the synergies and tensions between carbon smart choices and other project goals, constraints and requirements

Session ID: 

BOS20-224

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