This handbook explores the critically important topic of embodied carbon, providing advanced insights that focus on measuring and reducing embodied carbon from across the built environment, including buildings, urban areas and cities, and construction materials and components. Split into five distinct sections, international experts, researchers, and professionals present the recent developments in the field of embodied carbon from various perspectives and at different scales of material, building, and city. Following an introduction to the embodied carbon question, the chapters in Section 1 then cover the key debates around issues such as the politics of embodied carbon, links between embodied carbon and thermal mass, and the misuse of carbon offsets. Section 2 reviews the embodied carbon policies in a selected number of countries. Sections 3, 4, and 5 approach the topic of embodied carbon from urban-, building-, and material-scale perspectives, respectively, and use case studies to demonstrate estimation techniques and present opportunities and challenges in embodied carbon mitigation. This will be important reading for upper-level students and researchers in Architecture, Urban Planning, Engineering, and Construction disciplines. Presenting case studies of embodied carbon assessment, this book will also help practicing architects, engineers, and urban planners understand embodied carbon estimation techniques and different mitigation strategies.

Table of Contents:
SECTION 1: Introduction: The embodied carbon questions and debates 1. Introduction to this handbook - the question of embodied carbon 2. Minimising embodied carbon: A question of politics, not percentages 3. Climate-neutral and circular built environment - right here, right now - 4. Net zero in buildings and construction: Use and misuse of carbon offsets 5. Characterization of links between embodied carbon and thermal mass SECTION 2: Embodied decarbonization, approaches and policies 6. Introduction to Section 2: National and international approaches to and policies for decarbonisation 7. Embodied decarbonization in North America: A paradigm shift 8. Embodied carbon in building regulation – development and implementation in Finland, Sweden and Denmark 9. Global carbon budgets for the built environment: How far are we to achieve a 1.5°C limit in global warming? A Swiss example 10. The Levels framework and the Life Levels project: Developing common and national approaches to embodied carbon in European countries 11. Embodied emissions - knowledge building for industry SECTION 3: Urban scale perspectives 12. Introduction to Section 3: Embodied carbon and urban scale perspectives 13. Approaches and system boundaries for urban carbon accounts 14. Quantifying the sunk carbon costs of cities: A case-study of 50 years of construction in Odense, Denmark 15. Embodied GHG in transportation infrastructure SECTION 4: Building Scale Perspectives 16. Introduction to Section 4: Embodied carbon and building scale perspectives 17. Life cycle assessment applied to the eco-design of urban projects in France 18. Climate and resource footprint assessment in building information modelling: A method and indicators 19. Achieving social justice and environmental justice in safe affordable housing through a materials-centered, multi-level, transdisciplinary approach 20. Embodied carbon and building retrofit; a heritage example SECTION 5: Material scale perspectives 21. Introduction to Section 5: Embodied carbon and material scale perspectives 22. Real and apparent variations in embodied carbon impacts provided in EPD for construction products 23. Three windows: Accounting for embodied resources and cultural value 24. Embodied carbon in biogenic and earth materials: Accounting for the work of the biogeosphere in construction materials 25. Farm to building: Catalyzing the use of natural, net-zero, and healthier building materials