Fundamentals of Embodied Carbon

In this 3-week course you will learn the fundamentals of embodied carbon and environmental life cycle assessment, as well as tools and techniques for applying that knowledge in the context of design decision making.

Required Foundational Course in the Executive Program in Design for Sustainability (XDS) or as Stand-Alone Course

$699 

3 weeks

6 hours per week to complete all aspects of the course

AIA 6 LU|HSW

Online: Asynchronous videos + live on-line weekly meetings and assistance  

This course is ideal for architects, designers, engineers and other built environment professionals who want to understand embodied carbon and environmental life cycle assessment, as well as how it impacts their early design decisions.

Graduate

This course will introduce a variety of openly available industry tools for embodied carbon assessment including EC3, EPIC and Kaleidoscope.

Embodied Carbon Fundamentals

• Learn key terminologies surrounding whole life carbon and building life cycle assessment.
• Understand industry motivations for reducing climate impacts.
• Understand Environmental Product Declarations as they key points of information for product environmental impacts. 
• Learn to navigate Environmental Product Declaration databases.

Additional Information

• Introduction to Whole Life Carbon: embodied, operational and fugitive emissions.
• Embodied carbon deep dive: Understanding biogenic carbon, key terminologies (global warming potential, climate change)
• Introduction to Life Cycle Assessment: Environmental Indicators 
• Introduction to Life Cycle Assessment: Stages 
• Introduction to Environmental Product Declarations
• Navigating Environmental Product Declaration nuances: sector/product, functional units, EN standards, cradle-to-gate vs cradle-to-grave.
• Navigating industry Environmental Product Declaration Databases

Embodied Carbon Product Assessments

• Learn how to calculate embodied carbon. 
• Compute the embodied carbon of building elements.
• Learn how to use EC3 to find North American Environmental Product Declarations.
• Implement embodied carbon knowledge in variety of reduction scenarios.

Additional Information

• Learn the math behind embodied carbon calculations.
• Analyze the CLF Material Baseline Report.
• Use EC3 to compare products.
• Analyze material decisions.
• Analyze design decisions (operational carbon trade-off considerations)

Early-Stage Life Cycle Assessment

• Understand industry scopes, categories and life cycle assessment inclusions.
• Learn about the variety of industry tools available for assessing embodied carbon.
• Learn to use Kaleidoscope and EPIC tools for early-stage carbon estimates. 
• Learn best practice for constructing Revit models that are easily used in Life Cycle Assessment. 

Additional Information: 

• Understand the current requirements for Life Cycle Assessment in LEED and Living Building Challenge.
• Navigate what Whole Life Carbon would truly look like for a whole building.
• Learn to use the Kaleidoscope tool for early stage embodied carbon comparisons of building assemblies.
• Learn scope-by-cope tips and tricks for building a Revit model that contains the information that you will need for doing embodied carbon comparisons or life cycle assessments.