Making Real Zero Carbon Buildings with Carbon Storing Materials (What is Embodied Carbon?)

[@dougmcfarlane7378]

What a brilliant video providing a clear, succinct explanation for how carbon-storing materials in building construction are an important part of combating the climate crisis!

[@emrusso4625]

I love the simplicity of this recording. In its simplicity, an important point is overlooked... The trees that grow, appear to grow pretty fast. From my understanding, newly planted trees do not begin to store a significant amount of carbon into the forest ecosystem until they are 30 years old. I fully support those who harvest trees intentionally and with respect. What I do not support is the mechanized clear cut logging of naturally grown forests promoted as "sustainable/renewable material." Land defenders who are disrupting the production of "renewable/sustainable" cedar shakes, are jailed on Vancouver Island to preserve the old growth rainforest ecosystems at Ada'itsx (Fairy creek). How do we account for the loss of annual carbon sequestration from the trees AND the forest ecosystem? Removing trees (& forest ecosystems) that have been sequestering carbon for years is equivalent to selling an asset. The overall carbon sequestration balance goes down. We can not afford this loss. I suspect there is a formula for true carbon sequestration related to "natural" materials that takes into account time. Straw grows in a season. In who's lifetime are trees "renewable"? To remove trees, removes their ongoing sequestration from the equation and is the opposite of what we should be doing "to go beyond incremental reductions in GHG emissions, and to begin drawing carbon out of the atmosphere."

[@chrismagwood971]

Hi Em, thanks for the thoughtful (and respectful) response! All of your points are absolutely on the mark. The video definitely simplifies the issue, in particular with forests/forestry as you point out. In our work in this area, we pay lots of attention to these issues. In fact, our estimator tool for the carbon footprint of building materials, BEAM, doesn't actually attribute carbon storage values to virgin timber products for exactly the reasons you describe. Our work is much more focused on using biomass that comes from agricultural residues and the waste stream, and not from harvested timber. While I do think that there are ways in which timber can be harvested there is currently no system by which the overall climate impact (let alone all the other impacts of forestry) are being adequately measured. To be honest, we only put the tree in the animation because we thought viewers might not understand that materials other than trees can go into buildings, and harvesting trees was a good shorthand visual for the process. We see a pathway to net carbon storing buildings that does not rely on counting carbon storage in timber products, and that is at the centre of our work.

[@emrusso4625]

@@chrismagwood971 I knew we were on the same page. Have appreciated your work & your books for years! I look forward to the day when the term "value" has little if any to do with $.

[@elliotramsden3266]

Fantastic video. Extremely clear and visually appealing to understand. Thank you!

[@beng5747]

Two critical things to be clearly checked. 1. Can plants store that much amount of carbon? 2. Additional carbon emission process should be added: plant to carbon storage material. In the end, can this really offset whole carbon emission in the all value chain of the building construction process? (It stores even more than conventional construction)

[@chrismagwood971]

Hi Ben, thanks for your question/comments. The answer to your first question is, yes, plants can store that much carbon. Each year, the world grows billions of tonnes of agricultural residues (the plant matter left after we take the food bits away). For example, ~2 billion tonnes of grain straw is harvested annually and the ~4 billion tonnes of CO2 this has drawn out of the atmosphere is equal to the annual emissions of the country of India. We currently burn or rot nearly all of the agricultural residues (not to mention waste plant material like newspaper, cardboard, old clothing, etc) on the planet, returning all that CO2 back to the atmosphere. The potential supply of this material is much larger than the entire building industry can use... so yes, there is lots of it and it stores a lot of carbon. When we do the calculations of net emissions we always account for the planting, harvesting and production emissions that happen along the way... that's why the green line has a number of upward steps on its path, representing emissions that happen along the manufacturing and construction path. However, the vast majority of plant-based building materials store more carbon than is emitted throughout these life cycle phases. When these materials are incorporated into a building in sufficient quantity they can indeed offset the emissions of all the materials in the building. We have been using our BEAM tool to verify this, and have a number of case studies of actual buildings that get close to (or even exceed) net zero emissions from their materials.

[@ChristinaEbisch]

Brilliant presentation.

[@jonathancarter673]

This is such a brilliant video. Thank you for it. I would like to know - if you produce polyurethane using 100% clean energy, how much carbon is stored / released over its life cycle considering how effective an insulation material it is and space efficient... and I assume energy efficient to transport and install.

[@ragas2845]

One question. How do you know the exact amount of C02 that is stored in a plant/tree before it is harvested?

[@lockystuart4218]

Awesome video! Well done!

[@crcurran]

Doesn't this assume the buildings made from both types of material only last 60 years? Wouldn't concrete homes like ICF not only survive fire, tornado, and animal, bugs, it would last longer. The thermal mass that is more comfortable to the occupants especially in severe heat like the coming climate change. We have to ask... how is a house, not really, really well insulated, going to handle the higher temps and powerful storms in 2085? Is a house with a lot more thermal mass in the walls going to bear better when cost of power is much higher and more likely energy outages too due to climate change. Is a house with more thermal mass better for going off grid mid-century? Is it better under war conditions (Yes, this is a thing. THE USA is just lucky that war is almost non-existent on its shores but it's not immune.) What if an ICF house lasts 100-140 years compared to the 60-100 year old wood home? Locations that are prone to tornadoes and forest fires should consider 6" ICF so they we are not rebuilding these homes from scratch which has a huge carbon footprint. 2x4 flying in a tornado can go right through normal wood and sheetrock walls but not through an 6" ICF wall and it doesn't burn down easily either in forest fire. You can build with a carbon intensive material but do it right so it lasts longer and is super high performance requiring less HVAC tonnage installed and only electricity to power it with solar panels.

[@williamlewis1805]

I am on a benge trying to understand actual uses of carbon captured and everything I find is this vague... So many assumptions made, so many questions skipped. It's like watching one of those old "ancient aliens" or flat earth documentaries". No Substance

[@janjongert5165]

one critical remark: the surface coloring indicates a growing emission and storage in time which isn't true nor necessary to make the point. Here visualisation enthousiasm interferes with the correct meaning of the graph

[@sulomo]

I noticed the same. Remove the area coloring cause it is both wrong and confusing.

[@BuildersforClimateAction]

The colouring indicates that either the emissions are still in the atmosphere and continuing to drive warming year after year (for the red colour) or that the carbon continues to be stored in the building year after year (for the green colour). The climate impact of emissions is not a single fixed number... it's the AREA above or below the line. This dynamic impact is not something that current LCA practice considers, though dynamic LCA approaches are beginning to emerge that reflect the climate impact over time.

[@Michael-tn8eb]

Excellent!

[@enobongumoh1654]

Direct embodied carbon

[@michaelenglund]

Wood is great but the amount of climate gases in the atmosphere is already too big when starting to build no matter the material. Building with wood still is a problem, but less of a problem than building with concrete.

[@forestlearning5049]

Great questions! For us, it comes down to 'so, we have to build' and the question then becomes "what materials are we building with"? What alternative materials are available for us to use, and what is the full story of their extraction, manufacture and end of life phases. Wood stacks up on all three - it's the utlimate renewable! :)

[@michaelenglund]

@@forestlearning5049 In some cases it is possible to not build. Instead to convert or live differently as a single person. Would you still say you have to build if you knew that the climate went straight to hell for humanity?

[@chrismagwood971]

Hi Michael, Please see my response to Em Russo above for our more nuanced take on wood. The short version: we don't actually count carbon storage in virgin timber products in our calculations today, because we don't have sufficient data/reporting to understand the full climate impact of timber harvesting. It may be possible to build with wood in a way that helps the climate, but it's also reasonable to estimate that this is not the case today for the majority of wood being harvested.

[@oceancape]

Why choose only 60 years. Maybe take a moment and focus on constructing buildings & homes that last 200 hundred years or more.

[@chrismagwood971]

I agree that we should be doing everything we can to extend the expected lifespan of buildings. We use 60 years here because it is the "standard" timeline for life cycle assessment studies, not because we think buildings should only last 60 years.