Dynamic Accounting of Carbon Uptake in the Built Environment

Abstract

Transforming building materials from net life-cycle CO₂e emitters to carbon sinks is a key pathway towards decarbonizing the industrial sector. Current life-cycle assessments of materials (particularly “low-carbon” materials) often focus on cradle-to-gate emissions, which can exclude emissions and uptake (i.e., fluxes) later in the materials’ life-cycle. Further, conventional CO₂e emission characterization disregards the dynamic effects of the timing of emissions and uptake on cumulative radiative forcing from processes like manufacturing, biomass growth, and the decadal carbon storage in long-lived building materials. This work presents a framework to analyze the cradle-to-grave CO₂e balance of building materials using a time-dependent global warming potential calculation. We apply this framework in the dynamic accounting of carbon uptake in the built environment (D-CUBE) tool and examine two case studies: concrete and cross-laminated timber (CLT). When accounting for dynamic effects, the long storage time of biogenic carbon in CLT results in reduced warming, while the slow rate of uptake via concrete carbonation does not result in significant reductions in global warming. The D-CUBE tool allows for consistent comparisons across materials and emissions mitigation strategies at varying life-cycle stages and can be adapted to other materials or systems with different lifespans and applications. The flexibility of D-CUBE and the ability to identify CO₂e emission hot-spot life-cycle stages will be instrumental in identifying pathways to achieving net-carbon-sequestering building materials.

Typical global warming potential calculations do not consider the timing of emissions. The presented framework enables assessment of dynamic fluxes of long lifespan materials, more accurately informing decarbonization efforts.