Embodied Carbon Building Code

Written by New Buildings Institute

The Embodied Carbon Building Code overlay introduces code solutions incorporating prescriptive embodied carbon International Building Code (IBC) amendments for nearly 40 products, encompassing widely used and high carbon-emitting building materials. The overlay was created for policymakers seeking code language to address greenhouse gas emissions in commercial new construction or major renovations.

This product-focused prescriptive approach sets global warming potential (GWP) limits for products and requires verification through an environmental product declarations (EPDs). The report explains how the amendments can be modified to suit jurisdictional goals. Policymakers can choose to adopt a handful of products, alter the requirements to report EPDs, or set different GWP limits based on the GWP table within. The amendments are presented per product category, based on the code chapter in which the product category is regulated. We have provided a comprehensive PDF document via the download button above, email us to request the code provisions in a Word document.