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Beware the Lifecycle Carbon Trap
When lifecycle assessments don’t prioritize up-front carbon emissions, we all lose.
The house we build to die in
Imagine you’re deciding between building materials for your new house. You prioritize embodied-carbon so you’re looking for the products that have the greatest carbon benefit. You read every Environmental Product Declaration (EPD), picking through the carbon measurements.
Choosing between wood and steel studs for the framing, you read that steel has much higher carbon emissions on the front end, but comes out on top at the back end of the lifecycle. An inert, inorganic material, steel emits no CO2 equivalents in the landfill (unlike rotting timber). Steel can be recycled at end-of-use. Even better, because it is engineered, there is little to no waste on the front end (2%), unlike timber products which produce 20% waste (think sawdust and offcuts). Wow! No brainer.
Selecting your insulation between spray foam over fiberglass, you read that spray foam has a higher initial embodied carbon, but this is offset by its energy and operational carbon emission savings within eight years. Just eight years! That sounds great, you think.
You’re falling into a trap.
Traditional, carbon emitting industrial products emphasize the back-end of the…