The Rebuild Paradox
In July 2023, catastrophic flooding devastated communities across Vermont, destroying homes, infrastructure, and businesses. As communities began rebuilding, they faced a critical but often overlooked question: should we rebuild the same way we built before? If we rebuild using the same carbon-intensive materials that contributed to climate change in the first place, we’re fueling the next disaster. This is the carbon cycle in construction, a self-reinforcing loop where carbon-intensive materials contribute to climate change, which causes more disasters, requiring additional rebuilding with carbon-intensive materials. Breaking this cycle requires fundamentally changing what we build with and how those materials are made.
Understanding the Carbon Cycle in Construction
- Materials production → Carbon emissions – Traditional materials are manufactured using fossil fuel energy
- Construction → Locked-in emissions – Once installed, their carbon impact is permanent
- Climate change → More climate events – Cumulative emissions increase frequency and intensity of extreme weather
- Disasters → Rebuilding – Communities must rebuild, often under time and budget pressure
- Repeat the cycle – Rebuilding with carbon-intensive materials returns to step 1
The built environment accounts for nearly 40% of global carbon emissions. Embodied carbon makes up a quarter of those emissions. Embodied carbon refers to all greenhouse gas emissions associated with a material’s lifecycle: extracting raw materials, manufacturing, transportation, installation, and eventual disposal. Breaking this cycle requires rebuilding with materials that have dramatically lower embodied carbon, ideally manufactured using renewable energy and recycled content.
What Climate Resilience Really Means
Climate resilience goes beyond building structures that withstand extreme weather. It means choosing materials whose production doesn’t worsen the climate crisis, ensuring the act of rebuilding doesn’t contribute to the next disaster.
Unlike operational carbon (energy used to heat and cool buildings), embodied carbon is locked in the moment materials are manufactured. As buildings have become more operationally efficient, embodied carbon has become a larger share of total lifecycle emissions. For high performance buildings, embodied carbon can represent 50-80% of lifecycle emissions. This means material selection is no longer just about performance and cost.
The Hidden Carbon in Traditional Materials
Typical foundation assemblies include rigid foam insulation and crushed stone. Rigid foam is made from petrochemicals with fossil fuel energy, and crushed stone requires mining, processing, and hauling. Each component carries high embodied carbon. When you multiply this across thousands of rebuilding projects after a major disaster, the carbon impact becomes enormous.
The alternative is rebuilding with materials made from recycled content, manufactured using renewable energy, and designed to replace multiple carbon-intensive products with a single solution.
Breaking the Cycle: Low Carbon Manufacturing
Breaking the carbon cycle in construction requires two fundamental shifts:
- Circular Material Sources
Instead of extracting virgin materials through energy-intensive mining, low carbon materials should use recycled or waste content. This diverts waste from landfills while avoiding emissions from virgin material processing. - Electrified, Renewable Energy Manufacturing
Traditional manufacturing relies on fossil fuel combustion. Electrifying processes and powering them with renewable energy eliminates these direct emissions.
Glavel’s Approach: A Case Study
Glavel’s manufacturing demonstrates both principles:
- Circular Material Source: Foamed glass aggregate is made from 100% post-consumer recycled glass. Glavel’s Vermont facility diverts approximately 20 tons of recycled glass daily per kiln, transforming recycled material into high performance building products.
- Renewable Energy Manufacturing: The facility uses an electrified kiln, the first foamed glass aggregate production in North America designed to run entirely on electricity. A dedicated 5-megawatt solar array built with Encore Renewable Energy powers the manufacturing process with 100% renewable energy.
- Verified Impact: This combination results in 55% lower embodied carbon compared to traditional foam insulation assemblies, verified through a third-party Environmental Product Declaration (EPD).
Measuring Progress: The EC3 Tool
One challenge in reducing embodied carbon has been measurement. How do designers actually evaluate and compare the carbon impact of different materials? Building Transparency’s Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator (EC3) provides the answer. This free, open-source tool offers transparent embodied carbon data for thousands of building materials, allowing design teams to compare embodied carbon of different options, set carbon reduction targets, track progress toward net zero goals, and identify low carbon alternatives.
Many organizations are already using EC3 to drive change: Washington State requires it for public projects, the American Institute of Architects integrated it into their Materials Pledge, and corporations use it for net zero commitments. For manufacturers, having an EPD and being listed in EC3 signals transparency and accountability, allowing low carbon materials to compete by making carbon impact visible alongside cost and performance.
From Awareness to Action
For Architects and Engineers:
- Prioritize embodied carbon early – Use EC3 during schematic design, not as an afterthought.
- Set carbon budgets – Establish embodied carbon targets alongside energy performance goals.
- Specify EPD-verified materials – Require transparent, comparable carbon data.
- Educate clients – Help owners understand that material choices affect carbon footprint for 50+ years.
For Builders and Contractors:
- Ask suppliers for EPD data – Signal market demand for carbon transparency.
- Value engineer for carbon – Consider carbon impact alongside cost when seeking savings.
- Document successes – Share lessons learned to help the industry move faster.
For Developers and Building Owners:
- Include carbon reduction in project goals – Give teams the mandate to prioritize low-carbon materials.
- Consider lifecycle value – Low carbon materials often deliver long-term benefits beyond first cost.
- Support transparency – Choose materials with third-party verified carbon data.
The Path Forward
We can break the carbon cycle in construction by choosing materials made from recycled content that are manufactured with renewable energy. Major institutions, forward-thinking developers, and climate-conscious municipalities are setting carbon targets. Material manufacturers are investing in cleaner production. Architects and engineers are integrating embodied carbon analysis into workflows. The next time a community rebuilds after a disaster, it can do more than restore what was lost. It can rebuild with materials that won’t fuel the next disaster. That’s what breaking the carbon cycle means.
