Construction Materials: Environmental Impact Study
Team: Richard Graves, PI, Liz Kutschke
Program: Center for Sustainable Building Research
An examination of the feasibility, costs, and environmental benefits of requiring State construction project bids to specify products with a type III environmental product declaration.
CSBR partnered with the Carbon Leadership Forum (CLF) at the University of Washington to perform this Construction Materials Environmental Impact Study. This report provides an overview of low environmental impact material policies, focusing on the use of environmental product declarations (EPDs), which are thirty party–verified documents that report the environmental impacts of products.
This report is divided into four sections:
- Review of Type III environmental product declarations (EPDs) available for concrete, unit masonry, metal, wood.
- Review and summary of programs in other states and countries.
- Feasibility, economic costs, and environmental benefits of using EPDs in state construction
- Policy recommendations for the State of Minnesota.
Following this effort, B3 Staff held five focus group meetings with designers, engineers, owners, and other interested parties to understand the current and future landscape of embodied carbon reduction efforts, and for stakeholders to share their experiences and perspectives.
