Executive Director

Alison Kinn Bennett is the Executive Director of Building Transparency, a nonprofit organization that provides open access data and tools needed to inspire actions that positively impact the world. She focuses on elevating embodied carbon as a central climate issue and driving awareness of the power of standards, transparency, and data for more informed decision making. She is leading Building Transparency’s continued management and development of the EC3 and tally tools, and of the upcoming Open Data for Climate Initiative (ODCi) globally aligned baseline datasets.

With over 25 years of experience, Alison is passionate about leading improvements in sustainability disclosures, environmentally preferable purchasing, and cleaner manufacturing. She spent almost three decades at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), where she focused on leveraging private sector innovation and public sector spending to support cleaner, more resilient supply chains. 

At the EPA, Alison brought together policy and technical staff across dozens of green building and products related programs to advance comprehensive, market-based approaches to environmental protection. Most recently, she led Inflation Reduction Act-funded efforts to develop a methodology for calculating product-level embodied greenhouse gas emissions and to support the construction sector in reporting via Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs).

Alison has served in various advisory and leadership roles focused on driving more transparency and sustainable product purchasing within the built environment sector. Most recently, she was named the Chair of the Product Category Rule Standard V2 Committee for the American Center for Life Cycle Assessment (ACLCA). 

She earned her Master’s degree in Urban and Environmental Planning from the University of Virginia School of Architecture. And she received dual Bachelor’s degrees in Geography and Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley. She currently resides in Arlington, VA.