Materials Carbon Action Network

The Materials Carbon Action Network (materialsCAN) is comprised of members of the global building industry ready to act on the smart prioritization of embodied carbon in building materials. Our goals are:

Improve embodied carbon awareness via client, industry, and external partnerships;
Enable analysis and prioritization of embodied carbon goals in specifications;
Highlight case studies on low carbon, carbon neutral, and carbon sequestering interiors; and
Promote the EC3 Tool for comparing the embodied carbon building materials.

Video: Why materialsCAN (3 min)

Video: materialsCAN Walkthrough (10 min)

Carbon Emissions and the Building Industry

There are two types of carbon emissions with respect to a building:

Operational carbon is greenhouse gases emitted during the life of a building, e.g. from heating, cooling, or lighting. This is mostly due to energy use, though refrigerants are also a factor.
Embodied carbon is greenhouse gases emitted during the extraction, manufacture, and transport of building materials. The bulk occurs during construction, but replacement and renovation are also significant.