(EL02) GAF Presents: Community Carbon: Making an Impact on Lives and the Life Cycle of the Built Environment

This session will encourage the industry to rethink the way we look at project-based carbon. The discussion needs to extend beyond product selection based solely on embodied carbon and shift to appropriate product selection. A focus on only reducing the embodied carbon emissions of a product obscures consideration of how products may impact the building system’s operational energy performance and impact the lives of those that live in the community. It is critical to consider the bigger picture and impacts over the building's lifetime and that of the larger community when making design decisions.

Designers can leverage air barriers, insulation, roofing, rooftop agriculture and photovoltaics, and solar-reflective pavement coatings to provide comprehensive and innovative solutions to provide a design that includes embodied carbon as well as enhances energy efficiency and positively contributes to the community by reducing the urban heat island effect, creating social spaces, and potentially contributing to the energy grid. Consideration of the full product lifecycle is also key, as is the inclusion of recycling requirements within a project design.