The PA Hemp Home is Pennsylvania’s first total renovation of a residential structure using hemp-based building materials, utilizing breathable spray-applied Hemplime in its walls and HempWood on its floors.  The project, supported by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture was an honoree of the 2021 Fast Co.

The Inventory of Carbon and Energy (also know as the ICE database) is an embodied carbon database for building materials which is available for free on this page. It contains data for over 200 materials, broken down into over 30 main material categories. The first version was released in 2005 and it has been updated at periodic intervals. 

The Construction Material Pyramid from CINARK at the Royal Danish Academy makes it possible to compare, for example, CO2 footprints between different categories of materials or between material types within the same category. It also makes it possible to view different kinds of environmental impacts across the different materials. It thus offers a tangible, interactive calculation tool and at the same time opens up a dialogue about more detailed studies of the materials’ position in the pyramid and later their place in the project design.

Building construction materials represent 11% of global carbon emissions and 28% of the annual buildings related CO2 emissions, and yet, the demand for construction materials continues to grow, especially in the rapidly urbanizing Global South. Biomaterials offer a key opportunity for decarbonizing the buildings and construction sector, through transitioning from current linear, extractive, and toxic construction practices towards circular, bio-based, renewable materials and construction methods for a sustainable future.

This document was elaborated by the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance (CNCA) and Culmer Raphael under the project "Dramatically Reducing Embodied Carbon in Europe's Built Environment", which CNCA launched in 2021 with the support of the Laudes Foundation. The purpose of this document is to serve as a communications material that city staff can resort to when raising awareness of the importance of addressing embodied carbon and increasing the uptake of bio-based materials among their city-department peers.