Carbon Offsets Are Tomorrow’s Homebuilding Imperative
11:18
Making carbon offsets work requires using the right tools and resources as well shifting design thinking and strategy.
The concept of carbon tracking in the built environment started being discussed in the 1990s, and now, nearly four decades later, there are sophisticated tools to do the work. The industry started by understanding operational carbon, then moved into the concept of embodied carbon, and now we can do both.
Many groups, like the Carbon Leadership Forum, are creating standards for data and tracking. Life-cycle assessment is now gaining ground and appreciation in the industry as a way to include both operational and embodied carbon across the life of a building. There are now more policy and reporting requirements that help drive progress to net zero targets.
Organizations are slowly approaching these market changes with motivations to either meet future regulations or to take advantage of the business opportunity.
A Growing Marketplace
With an eye on the growing business opportunity, more startups are gaining ground in the space.
Persefoni is a climate accounting software that can help collect and report hard to track emissions data—even Scope 3 emissions that include emissions from suppliers and customers.
The software, which has been adopted by LP Building Solutions and U.S. LBM, lets companies request emissions data directly from suppliers. It also uses generative AI to create reports and ensure compliance with major emissions standards around the world.
Home@ix integrates carbon tracking into the homebuilding process with digital twin technology that offers homeowners a virtual model to make design choices and show how selections can impact carbon emissions. Then with the Home@ix Dashboard, homeowners can track carbon savings in real-time.
Another carbon estimating platform Sterling Digital Construction Solutions has a Forecasting Module that can tie project schedules together with detailed cost and carbon estimates for smarter, more sustainable decision-making.
Industry legacy, Saint-Gobain, completed an upgrade to its CertainTeed Gypsum plant in Quebec, to turn it into North America’s first zero-carbon (scopes 1 and 2) gypsum wallboard plant and the largest in the world. The facility will help decrease energy usage by up to 30% and boost production capacity by up to 40%, as the company moves towards its goal to reach net-zero carbon by 2050.
The new factory is producing CarbonLow, a new line of low-carbon gypsum wallboard with up to 60% less embodied carbon cradle-to-gate than others.
Green Builder Media spearheaded a two-year project to create the ESG for Building Defining Principles, a framework for integrating Environmental, Social, and Governance strategies into companies across the building and design industry.
The document details resources available to builders to transition to net zero missions, including the companies that meet the Core Carbon Principles standards. The listing was created by industry pros who were able to experience these companies’ services and rate them, including Climeworks, Native Energy, 3Degrees, Terrapass, and MyClimate.
Not a Clean Path: The Challenges
Net-zero ready homes could help lower carbon footprint, but more skilled workers are needed to build them. With labor at a premium, that’s additional costs that create a challenge. Additionally, creating a zero carbon and zero energy home may include some cost premiums.
A COGNITION survey from Green Builder Media reports that an overwhelming majority of readers see cost as the largest challenge to carbon offsets, at more than a third. Close behind are about 27% respondents who either lack the information or don’t even feel comfortable with what a carbon offset is.
Defining what is what is part of the challenge.
RESNET’s HERS Carbon Index calculates greenhouse gas emissions in units of CO2 e or equivalent CO2 emissions, including non-carbon greenhouse gases such as methane.
“Reports on emission reductions commonly use the word carbon when they really mean greenhouse gas,” says Michael Matthews, programs engagement specialist at RESNET. “Up until now, almost all carbon emission calculations have been based on annual average emissions. This sends the wrong signal to households and builders who want to minimize emissions, because the effect on emissions of a given house depend as much on the time of energy consumption as the amount.”
This standard is unique in its ability to compare emission savings from different design and fuel choice options for buildings for the consumer and builder.
Carbon Offsets Programs and Process
While carbon tracking has come a long way, the process to purchase offsets to reflect on a project is still evolving. Green Builder Media’s COGNITION survey shows that fewer than 20% of respondents have researched the process.
Just about to celebrate a decade in business, Iowa-based Cutler Development builds walkable, urban, mixed-use infill projects to deliver new homes at between 30% and 80% of AMI.
The company’s last three new construction projects were strategically developed with mass timber, which not only helped reach sustainability goals, but also helped arrive at affordable price points. Molly Cutler, manager at Cutler Development, enlisted Living Future to calculate the carbon. With the mass timber both reducing embodied carbon and also with its ability to sequester carbon, the project was able to reach a 70% reduction.
Living Future Zero Carbon Certification was developed to provide the industry with a verified, recognized standard that can validate that both the operational and embodied carbon emissions have been neutralized.
To achieve the certification, a built project has to reduce embodied carbon by 20% compared to a building of equivalent size, function, and energy performance. All projects must disclose and offset 100% of the embodied carbon emissions of primary materials, exterior materials, and interior materials through carbon-sequestering materials and/or through carbon offsets.
Plus, the project has to achieve an energy efficiency target over a 12-month period to perform 20% better than what is required by ASHRAE Standard 90.1-2019 or later or IECC 2021 or later. It also should provide 100% of the operational energy with new renewable energy, checked by metered reports.
“On the operational side, we used about 200 strategies with the envelope and MEP selections and everything else,” Cutler says of the company’s latest new construction project. “We were able to reduce about 28% compared to a building built to current Iowa building code.”
From there the company went to offsets, choosing Ever.green out of the few firms that Living Future has endorsed for its certification program. Ever.green provides access to high-impact renewable energy certified projects that have been vetted by their program. Today, most of the investment is being channeled to proven technologies, like wind, solar and storage. Widely held corporations can offset up to 75% of their federal tax liability.
For Cutler’s current project, Goldfinch Lofts, the mass timber gets it to a 70% reduction and the rest if covered with an offset from a new solar array.
“It is a LIHTC project with units at all levels up to 80% AMI,” Cutler says. “We layered in passive house as well as Living Future by using more focus on the architectural envelope and then chose really high efficiency MEP solutions.”
Liz Pearce, chief revenue officer at Ever.green connected Cutler with projects that were under construction at different price points and different completion dates. To achieve Living Future zero carbon certification, the offsets cannot come from a pre-existing project to incentivize new construction and drive more renewable energy projects.
“It’s also not a points-based system that can be offset with other things,” Cutler says. “It is truly how much energy your building draws against how much the renewable energy you are financing is producing. It’s like keeping receipts—you have to track the house meters every month for 12 months along with what the South Carolina field is producing for 12 months.”
Since Cutler purchased the offsets, it gave them the right to claim that portion of the energy from the South Carolina solar project, which means that the people receiving the energy cannot claim it because Cutler paid to say that it “owns” those energy savings. Cutler’s purchase filled a gap in the financing for the project so that it could come to fruition. The solar array will go online soon, which will start the clock for Cutler’s Living Future zero carbon certification.
Currently, there are very few companies that do the tracking to make sure that no one is double dipping on the energy savings.
Another benefit from using cross laminated timber, is that Cutler receives some funding from the U.S. Forestry Service for the positive health impacts of forestry management. Mass timber takes small growth tress that start wildfire, culling the small growth trees to be used for CLT.
Carbon Offsets Into The Future
McKinsey predicts that the demand for carbon credits will grow 15 times by 2030—and 100 times by 2050. Within the next decade, the overall market for carbon credits is estimated to be more than $50 billion.
“The writing is on the wall,” says Matthews from RESNET. “The production and high-performance builders who recognize and work to mitigate the amount of embodied and operational carbon their homes produce will gain market share as consumers see the information laid out in front of them through the tracked data and Carbon Index.”
It’s not only about using the tools and resources to meet objectives, it’s about a mental, culture shift in design thinking and strategy.
“A full accounting of carbon reduction necessarily encompasses the whole life cycle of the building, which I find an especially refreshing reset in the building-better evolution,” wrote Journal of Light Construction’s Chief Editor Clayton DeKorne. “Focusing on low-carbon forces us to think more holistically about buildings in a way that energy efficiency often doesn’t. As an industry, or perhaps a society, we are obsessed with the dollar payback on energy efficiency—a payback measured in years, and the fewer the better. No one ever accounts for the payback on granite countertops and open floor plans, but we insist that we account for the payback on high-performance windows and increased insulation and air sealing. This pushes us to think in short bursts of time about a critical dimension of building performance. The focus on embodied carbon ropes in the entire life of the building, and the longer the better.”
This is where the industry is headed. This is the future.
Jennifer Castenson currently serves as the vice president at online construction project management platform Buildxact. Previously, she served as the vice president of programming at national media and data group Zonda. Castenson also serves as contributing writer to Forbes, reporting on innovative solutions in the built environment.
Carbon Offsets Are Tomorrow’s Homebuilding Imperative
Making carbon offsets work requires using the right tools and resources as well shifting design thinking and strategy.
The concept of carbon tracking in the built environment started being discussed in the 1990s, and now, nearly four decades later, there are sophisticated tools to do the work. The industry started by understanding operational carbon, then moved into the concept of embodied carbon, and now we can do both.
Many groups, like the Carbon Leadership Forum, are creating standards for data and tracking. Life-cycle assessment is now gaining ground and appreciation in the industry as a way to include both operational and embodied carbon across the life of a building. There are now more policy and reporting requirements that help drive progress to net zero targets.
Organizations are slowly approaching these market changes with motivations to either meet future regulations or to take advantage of the business opportunity.
A Growing Marketplace
With an eye on the growing business opportunity, more startups are gaining ground in the space.
Persefoni is a climate accounting software that can help collect and report hard to track emissions data—even Scope 3 emissions that include emissions from suppliers and customers.
The software, which has been adopted by LP Building Solutions and U.S. LBM, lets companies request emissions data directly from suppliers. It also uses generative AI to create reports and ensure compliance with major emissions standards around the world.
Home@ix integrates carbon tracking into the homebuilding process with digital twin technology that offers homeowners a virtual model to make design choices and show how selections can impact carbon emissions. Then with the Home@ix Dashboard, homeowners can track carbon savings in real-time.
Another carbon estimating platform Sterling Digital Construction Solutions has a Forecasting Module that can tie project schedules together with detailed cost and carbon estimates for smarter, more sustainable decision-making.
Industry legacy, Saint-Gobain, completed an upgrade to its CertainTeed Gypsum plant in Quebec, to turn it into North America’s first zero-carbon (scopes 1 and 2) gypsum wallboard plant and the largest in the world. The facility will help decrease energy usage by up to 30% and boost production capacity by up to 40%, as the company moves towards its goal to reach net-zero carbon by 2050.
The new factory is producing CarbonLow, a new line of low-carbon gypsum wallboard with up to 60% less embodied carbon cradle-to-gate than others.
Green Builder Media spearheaded a two-year project to create the ESG for Building Defining Principles, a framework for integrating Environmental, Social, and Governance strategies into companies across the building and design industry.
The document details resources available to builders to transition to net zero missions, including the companies that meet the Core Carbon Principles standards. The listing was created by industry pros who were able to experience these companies’ services and rate them, including Climeworks, Native Energy, 3Degrees, Terrapass, and MyClimate.
Not a Clean Path: The Challenges
Net-zero ready homes could help lower carbon footprint, but more skilled workers are needed to build them. With labor at a premium, that’s additional costs that create a challenge. Additionally, creating a zero carbon and zero energy home may include some cost premiums.
A COGNITION survey from Green Builder Media reports that an overwhelming majority of readers see cost as the largest challenge to carbon offsets, at more than a third. Close behind are about 27% respondents who either lack the information or don’t even feel comfortable with what a carbon offset is.
Defining what is what is part of the challenge.
RESNET’s HERS Carbon Index calculates greenhouse gas emissions in units of CO2 e or equivalent CO2 emissions, including non-carbon greenhouse gases such as methane.
“Reports on emission reductions commonly use the word carbon when they really mean greenhouse gas,” says Michael Matthews, programs engagement specialist at RESNET. “Up until now, almost all carbon emission calculations have been based on annual average emissions. This sends the wrong signal to households and builders who want to minimize emissions, because the effect on emissions of a given house depend as much on the time of energy consumption as the amount.”
This standard is unique in its ability to compare emission savings from different design and fuel choice options for buildings for the consumer and builder.
Carbon Offsets Programs and Process
While carbon tracking has come a long way, the process to purchase offsets to reflect on a project is still evolving. Green Builder Media’s COGNITION survey shows that fewer than 20% of respondents have researched the process.
Just about to celebrate a decade in business, Iowa-based Cutler Development builds walkable, urban, mixed-use infill projects to deliver new homes at between 30% and 80% of AMI.
The company’s last three new construction projects were strategically developed with mass timber, which not only helped reach sustainability goals, but also helped arrive at affordable price points. Molly Cutler, manager at Cutler Development, enlisted Living Future to calculate the carbon. With the mass timber both reducing embodied carbon and also with its ability to sequester carbon, the project was able to reach a 70% reduction.
Living Future Zero Carbon Certification was developed to provide the industry with a verified, recognized standard that can validate that both the operational and embodied carbon emissions have been neutralized.
To achieve the certification, a built project has to reduce embodied carbon by 20% compared to a building of equivalent size, function, and energy performance. All projects must disclose and offset 100% of the embodied carbon emissions of primary materials, exterior materials, and interior materials through carbon-sequestering materials and/or through carbon offsets.
Plus, the project has to achieve an energy efficiency target over a 12-month period to perform 20% better than what is required by ASHRAE Standard 90.1-2019 or later or IECC 2021 or later. It also should provide 100% of the operational energy with new renewable energy, checked by metered reports.
“On the operational side, we used about 200 strategies with the envelope and MEP selections and everything else,” Cutler says of the company’s latest new construction project. “We were able to reduce about 28% compared to a building built to current Iowa building code.”
From there the company went to offsets, choosing Ever.green out of the few firms that Living Future has endorsed for its certification program. Ever.green provides access to high-impact renewable energy certified projects that have been vetted by their program. Today, most of the investment is being channeled to proven technologies, like wind, solar and storage. Widely held corporations can offset up to 75% of their federal tax liability.
For Cutler’s current project, Goldfinch Lofts, the mass timber gets it to a 70% reduction and the rest if covered with an offset from a new solar array.
“It is a LIHTC project with units at all levels up to 80% AMI,” Cutler says. “We layered in passive house as well as Living Future by using more focus on the architectural envelope and then chose really high efficiency MEP solutions.”
Liz Pearce, chief revenue officer at Ever.green connected Cutler with projects that were under construction at different price points and different completion dates. To achieve Living Future zero carbon certification, the offsets cannot come from a pre-existing project to incentivize new construction and drive more renewable energy projects.
“It’s also not a points-based system that can be offset with other things,” Cutler says. “It is truly how much energy your building draws against how much the renewable energy you are financing is producing. It’s like keeping receipts—you have to track the house meters every month for 12 months along with what the South Carolina field is producing for 12 months.”
Since Cutler purchased the offsets, it gave them the right to claim that portion of the energy from the South Carolina solar project, which means that the people receiving the energy cannot claim it because Cutler paid to say that it “owns” those energy savings. Cutler’s purchase filled a gap in the financing for the project so that it could come to fruition. The solar array will go online soon, which will start the clock for Cutler’s Living Future zero carbon certification.
Currently, there are very few companies that do the tracking to make sure that no one is double dipping on the energy savings.
Another benefit from using cross laminated timber, is that Cutler receives some funding from the U.S. Forestry Service for the positive health impacts of forestry management. Mass timber takes small growth tress that start wildfire, culling the small growth trees to be used for CLT.
Carbon Offsets Into The Future
McKinsey predicts that the demand for carbon credits will grow 15 times by 2030—and 100 times by 2050. Within the next decade, the overall market for carbon credits is estimated to be more than $50 billion.
“The writing is on the wall,” says Matthews from RESNET. “The production and high-performance builders who recognize and work to mitigate the amount of embodied and operational carbon their homes produce will gain market share as consumers see the information laid out in front of them through the tracked data and Carbon Index.”
It’s not only about using the tools and resources to meet objectives, it’s about a mental, culture shift in design thinking and strategy.
“A full accounting of carbon reduction necessarily encompasses the whole life cycle of the building, which I find an especially refreshing reset in the building-better evolution,” wrote Journal of Light Construction’s Chief Editor Clayton DeKorne. “Focusing on low-carbon forces us to think more holistically about buildings in a way that energy efficiency often doesn’t. As an industry, or perhaps a society, we are obsessed with the dollar payback on energy efficiency—a payback measured in years, and the fewer the better. No one ever accounts for the payback on granite countertops and open floor plans, but we insist that we account for the payback on high-performance windows and increased insulation and air sealing. This pushes us to think in short bursts of time about a critical dimension of building performance. The focus on embodied carbon ropes in the entire life of the building, and the longer the better.”
This is where the industry is headed. This is the future.
All images courtesy Cutler Development.
Publisher’s Note: Green Builder's 20th Anniversary celebration is sponsored by: Carrier, Trex, and Mohawk.
By Jennifer Castenson, Guest Columnist
Jennifer Castenson currently serves as the vice president at online construction project management platform Buildxact. Previously, she served as the vice president of programming at national media and data group Zonda. Castenson also serves as contributing writer to Forbes, reporting on innovative solutions in the built environment.Also Read