{"id":36831,"date":"2025-07-15T05:54:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-15T03:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/?p=36831"},"modified":"2025-07-15T05:55:19","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T03:55:19","slug":"reducing-embodied-carbon-emissions-in-cities-the-path-to-carbon-neutrality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/2025\/07\/15\/reducing-embodied-carbon-emissions-in-cities-the-path-to-carbon-neutrality\/","title":{"rendered":"Reducing embodied carbon emissions in cities: The path to carbon neutrality"},"content":{"rendered":"

The construction industry is one of the largest contributors to global carbon emissions, accounting for 37 % environmental emissions<\/strong>from which 10 % comes directly from building construction<\/strong>. A key, but often overlooked, factor is embodied carbon<\/strong> \u2013 emissions that arise from materials extraction, manufacturing, transportation, installation, maintenance and demolition. Although research and regulations have advanced in the area of operational energy efficiency of buildings, there is still a critical gap in understanding the full life cycle of embodied carbon in buildings at the city-wide scale, particularly in developed countries. Addressing the climate crisis and achieving carbon neutrality requires quantifying all carbon emissions from buildings and implementing strategies to reduce them.<\/p>\n

New research<\/span><\/a> presents a systematic framework for assessing embodied carbon emissions in buildings at the urban scale. It aims to create a high-resolution dataset of building life cycle emissions for urban areas, evaluate different mitigation strategies, and identify the most influential factors affecting urban embodied carbon emissions. The study focuses on the \u201ccradle to grave\u201d phases (Phases A\u2013C) of the building life cycle, excluding operational carbon from Phase B to focus exclusively on embodied carbon. This research, conducted on the example of the Chicago metropolitan area, simulated over a million buildings and 350,000 iterations, providing deep insight into CO2 emissions under different urban planning scenarios. To achieve the high resolution of the data, \u201cbottom-up\u201d methods were used, which analyze individual buildings, materials, or technologies before expanding them to a broader view of the entire building.<\/p>\n

Key findings from the Chicago simulation<\/strong><\/p>\n

A simulation of Chicago, which included 1,010,840 buildings, revealed fundamental insights into embodied carbon emissions. The city's average total changed emissions were 5.49 \u00d7 10^9 kg CO2, with a range from 1.93 \u00d7 10^9 kg CO2 to 1.62 \u00d7 10^10 kg CO2, highlighting the huge difference and the need for informed policy.<\/p>\n

The most important conclusions include:<\/p>\n