Building Codes, Buy Clean, and Beyond: An Embodied Carbon State Policy Playbook

A new policy guide from NRDC and several building and architecture groups lays out how states can cut "embodied carbon" — the emissions baked into construction materials like concrete and steel, as opposed to the energy a building uses once it's running. These material emissions make up roughly 17 percent of global emissions but have gotten far less attention than heating, cooling, and lighting. With federal incentives for low-carbon materials rolled back over the past two years, states have been picking up the slack: Colorado passed financial incentives for cleaner construction, Washington is looking at adding embodied carbon rules to its building code, and California is rolling out a first-in-the-nation law requiring a 40 percent cut in construction material emissions.

The playbook sets targets for three areas: buildings (a 45 percent reduction by 2035, 90 percent by 2050), infrastructure (30 percent by 2035, 90 percent by 2050), and products (getting 45 percent of construction materials sold nationally to be low-carbon by 2035). The tools involved include building code changes, public project requirements, procurement standards, labeling and reporting rules, and tax incentives — mostly aimed at state agencies, developers, and material suppliers rather than individual homeowners.

This is policy groundwork rather than a program homeowners can tap into directly. But it points to a shift that could eventually touch home renovations and new builds: as more states adopt these material standards, the concrete, steel, and other products used in construction and remodeling may increasingly carry lower-carbon labeling or sourcing requirements, depending on what your state decides to adopt.