NRMCA Executive Vice President, Structures and Sustainability, Lionel Lemay was recently featured on a panel discussion at the Structures Congress in Atlanta to discuss Scale Building Decarbonization Through Digital EPDs & Project Benchmarking. The conference, held annually by the Structural Engineering Institute, features presentations and technical sessions ranging from resilience to embodied carbon in structures.
Lemay presented along with industry representatives from the wood and steel industries and two key representatives from the design community. Lemay discussed how NRMCA was one of the first industries to adopt the Architecture 2030 Challenge for Products in 2012 and publish benchmarks for carbon footprint in 2014. Subsequently, the concrete industry has shown a 21% decrease in carbon footprint in seven years and concrete producers have published over 35,000 product specific EPDs. Conversely, the wood and steel industry have yet to develop benchmarks and have very few product-specific EPDs.
The structural engineering community has adopted the SE2050 which is an initiative to reduce carbon footprint of structures to zero by 2050. NRMCA participates on the committee to help develop tools and guidance to help meet this goal.
For more information, contact Lionel Lemay at llemay@nrmca.org or 847-922-7995.
National Ready Mixed Concrete Association