The construction industry is the elephant in the room when it comes to emissions and pollution. It is estimated that nearly half of all annual global CO2 emissions result from the built environment. Building operations account for roughly half of that, with embodied carbon (the carbon associated with building-materials extraction and manufacturing and the construction process) making up the rest. Cement and iron and steel production, the bedrock of contemporary construction, alone contribute nearly 6 billion tons of CO2 on an annual basis. However, such huge environmental footprints, which partially result from waste-heavy and energy-intensive linear supply chains, need not be a given and can be substantially reduced through the reuse and recycling of building materials, also known as circular sourcing. According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, approximately 15 percent of building materials are wasted during the construction process, and just 20 to 30 percent of demolition waste is reused or recycled. A number of firms within the AEC industry are seeking to remedy that paradigm through new sourcing protocols and material-tracking software.
Cornell University’s Circular Construction Lab, an interdisciplinary research unit at the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning, is investigating and applying technologies, methods, and strategies that support a transition from a linear model of material consumption to a circular economy. Founded in 2020, the Lab is developing software to measure the potential for circularity in the early-design phases of building projects and is conducting ongoing research into the benefits of deconstruction and waste diversion.
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