Reducing Embodied Carbon @ Work: Low-Carbon Cement-Based Product Strategies for Data Centers, Warehouses, and Industry

Faculty Lead: Randolph Kirchain, Director, MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub and Principal Research Scientist, MIT Materials Research Laboratory

An important part of any firm’s sustainability strategy is creating physical infrastructure with a small impact on the environment. This means creating buildings that are efficient to operate, designed to be durable while using materials efficiently and constructed from low-carbon materials. For most buildings and horizontal construction, the largest source of carbon emissions comes from operational energy consumption. After operational impacts, the next issue to confront is reducing the embodied carbon association with building and horizontal construction, maintenance, and end-of-life. For most commercial facilities, the single largest sources of embodied carbon are associated with the production of cement-based products. This proposal will provide the knowledge and tools for MCSC members to benchmark their current construction-related embodied carbon status, understand the existing and emerging strategies to reduce that carbon, and to identify the scalable low-carbon cement-based product solutions most suited to their application and context. This proposed work will explore strategies to reduce the carbon burden of both buildings and horizontal construction (e.g., parking facilities and  courtyards). Solutions will focus on binder technologies to reduce the carbon emissions associated with cement-based product materials, with a second phase to this project focusing on strategies to use cement-based products efficiently and effectively.