Working Together to Reduce Emissions from Building Materials

Alberta Ecotrust Foundation is excited to team up with the Carbon Leadership Forum (CLF) Alberta Hub to reduce emissions caused by building materials in Alberta. This collaboration will take place through Alberta Ecotrust’s Emissions-Neutral Buildings Information Exchange (ENBIX) initiative.

 

ENBIX is a collaborative initiative of Alberta Ecotrust that aims to accelerate the transition to an emissions-neutral built environment for new and existing buildings in Alberta. ENBIX is led and guided by the industry, so collaborating with organizations like CLF Alberta is essential to achieving its goal.

CLF Alberta, a local “hub” of the global Carbon Leadership Forum, is Alberta’s embodied carbon leader. Embodied carbon refers to the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with building materials. It includes the emissions that are released during extraction, transportation, processing, construction, use, and demolition (or end-of-life processes) for all materials used.

Significant efforts are underway in Alberta to reduce emissions from building operations, such as heating and cooling, known as ‘operational carbon.’ However, many of the emissions associated with buildings come from ‘embodied carbon.’

Addressing both operational and embodied carbon is essential for reducing overall emissions from buildings in Alberta.

Figure 1. Embodied carbon (yellow) and operational carbon (blue) across the life cycle of a building

CLF Alberta launched in 2020 with the goal of creating a community and empowering the building industry to reduce embodied carbon. They do this by coordinating educational events and webinars that highlight ways to reduce embodied carbon from buildings and infrastructure.

Through ENBIX, Alberta Ecotrust and CLF Alberta will work together to provide the building industry with the knowledge and tools to address embodied carbon in their construction practices by:

  • Co-hosting events and webinars
  • Developing shared resources related to embodied carbon
  • Sharing knowledge about best practices and lessons learned

By working together, Alberta Ecotrust aims to further amplify the impactful work of CLF Alberta and reach a broader audience to drive meaningful change in construction practices.

Learn more about embodied carbon

Check out our resource library to learn more about embodied carbon.

The CLF Alberta Team

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