Historically, policies and best practices for green building and sustainable architecture have focused almost exclusively on operational energy and, by implication, operational carbon emissions. However, a growing body of research substantiates the significance of embodied carbon relative to operational carbon, particularly when considering global carbon reduction goals. To keep global warming within a 1.5-degree Celsius limit, total emissions from the built environment must be reduced by 45% before 2030 and achieve net-zero by 2050.3 Understanding that material carbon emissions occur before the operational life of a building even begins, coupled with the speed and scale of development currently underway, reducing these up-front emissions is critical. While new tools are making it easier to prioritize carbon emissions reductions, there is still a dearth of research demonstrating how to balance embodied carbon and operational carbon during the design process.

This case study begins to fill this gap in the research by presenting the outcomes of a recent university-based design-build program that prioritized designing for low-energy and low-carbon emissions in small-scale housing.