Building Decarbonization: A California Climate Imperative

Manatt Energy and Environment Partner  wrote an article for the Riverside County Bar Association discussing the mandate for the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to significantly reduce carbon intensity of building materials, and how California’s decarbonization goals are impacting the regulated community and regulators alike.  

Reducing embodied carbon, defined by CARB as “the carbon dioxide equivalent emissions associated with a product as determined using life-cycle assessment,” is key to building decarbonization. While previous decarbonization plans focused on environmental factors of new and existing structures, recent research shows that nearly half of a building’s life-cycle carbon intensity originates from construction before any deliberate operations occur. In the next decade, CARB is ordered by legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions of building materials by forty percent and may be able to effectively achieve this target by reducing embodied carbon. 

“But the focus on embodied carbon is a relatively new frontier, not only for the regulated community but for the regulators themselves. It remains to be seen how cooperative and collaborative the development community intends to be with CARB in advancing a new regulatory regime with which they will soon have to comply,” David wrote.  

Read the full article .