How to Measure Embodied Energy in Building Materials

Brief 

Learn how the concept of embodied energy shaped the face of sustainable design, and which materials have the most significant impact on global carbon emissions.

Insight

Tvery building tells many stories, and one of those stories is how it impacts the environment. To understand that story, we can look at the greenhouse gas emissions of all the materials used to erect a building, as well as the energy it took to turn those raw resources into a habitable structure.

Learn how the concept of embodied energy shaped the face of sustainable design, and which materials have the most significant impact on global carbon emissions. We will also look at how architects and construction companies use the idea of embodied energy to build a greener future, and at the newer terms used to refine this idea.

What Is Embodied Energy?

Embodied energy, also known as embodied carbon, refers to the total amount of carbon expended in the front-end creation of buildings. This includes the mining and manufacturing of the building materials, the transportation of the materials to the construction sites, and the construction of the buildings themselves.

Every material used in construction—including but not limited to concrete, lumber, aluminum, steel, glass and plastic—currently relies on burning fossil fuels during extraction, manufacture, transportation, and construction. Once buildings are erected, they “embody” the carbon expenditures of the resources required to build them.

However, this embodied energy does not literally reside inside the structures—those emissions have already been released into the atmosphere. That’s why some sustainability experts prefer the term upfront carbon emissions, which more accurately describes the energy expenditures, a term coined by Treehugger’s own Lloyd Alter.1

Life-Cycle Emissions

Embodied energy is distinct from life-cycle emissions, which include operational emissions of a building (lighting, heating, and cooling, for example), upfront carbon emissions, as well as the eventual disposal of the building materials.