You may have already heard that on average, Americans spend 90 percent of their time indoors. But did you also know that 21% of global greenhouse gas emissions are from buildings and their construction? That’s almost 1/4th of all greenhouse gas emissions on a global scale.
Let’s take a step back and review the basics.
Greenhouse gases:
Our planet’s atmosphere naturally contains greenhouse gasses, like carbon dioxide, which you can think of as a blanket around our planet that maintains the conditions for life to thrive. When energy from the sun reaches the planet as sunlight, some of it is naturally reflected back into space, while our greenhouse gas blanket traps some of this energy on Earth. This keeps the planet warm enough for life. However, when a lot of greenhouse gasses are released into the air, the atmosphere’s natural balance is disrupted and our greenhouse gas blanket traps in too much heat. This is what is called global warming.
Buildings are the cause of a lot of greenhouse gas emissions. To address this problem, green building rating systems were developed to create standardized frameworks for judging just how “green,” another word for sustainable, a building really is. Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), Living Building Challenge (LBC), and the WELL Building Standard are all common green building rating systems. The Center for Sustainable Landscapes at Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, located in Pittsburgh, PA, has accomplished the incredible feat of securing LEED, LBC, and WELL green building certifications, as well as four additional certifications not pictured below. The Center is a true leader in regenerative design– the project produces more energy than it consumes on an annual basis and treats all onsite storm and sanitary water to be used as flushwater in the building’s restrooms. We can look toward the Center for Sustainable Landscapes as an inspiring example of innovative green design.
Photo Source: The Center for Sustainable Landscapes at Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens
Often, green building rating systems incentivize locally sourced and produced projects. For decades, the mainstream strategy prioritized reductions in the building’s day-to-day energy consumption, known operational carbon emissions, through energy efficiency and renewable energy generation. While still important, people are now realizing the greenhouse gasses emitted during the lifecycles of the products that go into the building, known as embodied carbon emissions, can also have large impacts on a building’s total carbon footprint.
Photo Source: One Click LCA “Life Cycle Stages”
What are the life cycle stages of a product?
- Product Phase: raw material extraction, material transport, and manufacturing processes
- Construction Phase: Moving products from the manufacturer and installing them at the construction site
- Product Use and Maintenance Phase: building operation and maintenance
- End of Life Phase: includes deconstruction, demolition, waste transport, and waste processing/disposal
The think-tank RMI estimates that 65-85% of a building’s total embodied carbon emissions occur during the Product Phase. This means that targeting emissions during raw material extraction, material transport, and manufacturing processes can have huge impacts on overall carbon emissions. Encouraging local supply chains is a key factor in reducing the embodied carbon emissions of the Product Phase. In particular, Appalachian manufactures can hone in on sustainably producing high impact materials, such as concrete, steel, gypsum board, and carpet; reductions in these products’ emissions can have a large impact on the industry’s total carbon footprint.
Photo Source: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-photo-of-cannabis-plant-7667883/
Some materials, mostly bio-based materials like wood, hemp, straw, bamboo, and algae, are considered carbon storing materials, meaning the carbon stored through photosynthesis during their lifetime remains stored when they are used as building products. Appalachia can grow and manufacture region-specific bio-based building products.
Make it in Appalachia Listening Session
In October 2024, ReImagine Appalachia hosted the The Make It In Appalachia Series: Creating Green Building Product Supply Chains in Appalachia listening session on leveraging the excitement around increased adoption of green building rating systems to transform the Ohio River Valley into a leader in the green building supply chain.
When session participants were asked which products they believed Appalachia should become a manufacturing hub for, hemp-based products rose to the top. Eco-bricks were another fan-favorite, along with mass timber. With one of Appalachia’s strengths being natural resources, focusing on strengthening a bio-based green building product supply chain makes a lot of sense, and provides a unique opportunity for the region.
Graphic produced by a mentimeter poll at the October 24, 2024 listening session on Creating Green Building Product Supply Chains in Appalachia (https://reimagineappalachia.org/the-make-it-in-appalachia-series-creating-green-building-product-supply-chains-in-appalachia/)
The Opportunity for Appalachian Manufacturers
Appalachia’s manufacturers serving East Coast, Midwest and Southern construction markets can take advantage of historical strengths and in greening building materials, boosting good jobs and prosperity in the region. Appalachia can focus on manufacturing these high-impact building materials, as well as other common building materials such as timber, insulation, clay and refractory materials and glass through a carbon conscious, non-toxic, and even biogenic framework and capture rising demand for green buildings. By focusing on green product manufacturing, Appalachia has an incredible opportunity to become a hub for green building product manufacturing.
Video Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Moreover, shifting manufacturing priorities away from linear production toward product circularity, which is also gaining momentum in green building rating systems, the region can lay the groundwork for a thriving reuse economy, a system in which materials bypass the landfill and instead, remain in circulation as useful resources and material inputs.