Carbon Emissions: Overcoming One of the Biggest Challenges in Building Infrastructure

Given the results of the U.S. presidential election, no one knows to what extent climate change and reduction of Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHGs) will remain a priority throughout the next four years. However, one thing that is certain is there are a lot of innovative efforts underway from state and local governments, large corporations, construction companies, contractors, and materials suppliers across various types of infrastructure to reduce and eliminate carbon emissions.

Reducing the GHG emissions from construction is important as according to the World Economic Forum “global cement manufacturing is responsible for about 8% of the world’s total CO2 emissions.” In the words of Jonson Berman, a senior investment associate for Suffolk Technologies, who spoke at BuiltWorlds’ Infrastructure Conference this past October, “Embodied carbon is the built world’s largest decarbonization challenge.” In a recent interview with BuiltWorlds, Jit Kee Chin, CTO of Suffolk Construction and colleague of Berman stated, “I’m really excited about low-carbon materials and their potential to drastically lower embodied carbon … There are many technologies out there right now that have proven out prototypes and are starting to scale.”

According to a recent White House Announcement, several states and municipalities across the country are adopting initiatives to reduce embodied carbon and utilize low emissions concrete and other materials. Los Angeles announced it will carry out five demonstration projects of ultra-low-carbon concrete solutions and New York City directed city agencies to begin requiring environmental product declarations for various concrete and steel products. Washington State outlined timelines and data requirements to incorporate embodied carbon into the state’s procurement decisions, New York State committed to reduce carbon emissions from concrete used in the state’s infrastructure projects by 30% by 2028, and The State of Michigan shared new partnerships between the Michigan Department of Transportation and local municipalities to support the adoption of cleaner construction materials in state and local transportation and infrastructure projects.

Additionally, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has developed Environmental Product Declarations (EDPs), a process by which state and local Department of Transportations (DOTs) can document the environmental impact of a product or material throughout its lifecycle and enables those DOTs to make informed decisions and reduce environmental impacts.

Another important way in which industry and the private sector can support sustainability in infrastructure is through utilization of low carbon cement and materials in the construction of new data centers which are growing exponentially as a result of demand for digital services such as cloud computing, video streaming, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things (IoT). The Open Compute Project Foundation, in collaboration with some of the country’s largest builders of data centers—AWS, Google, Meta, and Microsoft—announced a collaborative effort to drive the adoption of low-embodied carbon concrete in data center construction…targeting a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to greater than 50% per cubic yard. More specifically, Microsoft recently announced that it was going to build two new data centers in Virginia utilizing low carbon wood and similar materials which the company said it expects to reduce the facilities’ embodied carbon footprint by 35 percent compared to conventional steel construction, and 65 percent compared to typical precast concrete.

How Construction Companies Are Getting Involved

Construction companies and suppliers are also serious in their pledges and development of demonstration projects:

• Clark Pacific, a leading U.S. manufacturer of prefabricated building systems, pledged to achieve five demonstration projects that will reduce cement use by 25% relative to the Marin County and Santa Monica low carbon concrete code limits for precast.
• Turner Construction Company, the largest general builder in the country, will by 2026 implement at least five demonstration projects using concrete with 50% lower emissions. Beginning next year, Turner will track embodied carbon and require environmental product declarations for projects representing a majority of its annual revenues.
• Heidelberg Materials North America, one of the largest concrete, cement, and aggregate producers, pledged that by 2030 it would reduce company-wide emissions by 25% and reduce emissions from a single U.S.-based plant by more than 50% from 2020 levels,
• Cemex, a leading producer of cement and concrete in the United States, pledged to supply concrete with a reduction in global warming potential of at least 40%
• National Ready Mixed Concrete Company, one of Southern California’s largest ready-mixed concrete companies, committed to piloting five innovative demonstration projects of near-zero emissions concrete by 2027.

What other types of Infrastructure and Construction industry subsets will be looking to utilize sustainable materials in future projects? Where are the investments headed by construction firms, asset owners, and material manufacturers and suppliers? Those questions and more are what will be driving the conversations and content that make up our Infrastructure, Construction Technology and Venture Research Tracks and accompanying Forums in 2025.