Accounting for Carbon: EC3 and Building Transparency
Through the crowds at Greenbuild 2022, something caught my eye: a troop of Girl Scouts talking about concrete. Like a trail of bread crumbs, I followed them to a simple wooden booth and to their convention host, Stacy Smedley, the innovator behind Building Transparency, a nonprofit organization that has developed a tool for measuring carbon in construction and structures. Stacy used her booth at Greenbuild to demonstrate the power of data: each element of furniture or structure was tagged with its unique carbon footprint, and the walls were decorated with printouts demonstrating the output of the EC3 tool.
As event and venue sustainability specialists, we saw all sorts of applications for owners, managers, developers, and even booth designers to use the EC3 tool to track carbon data reliably when planning for any sort of built environment.
EC3 is a free, open access software that provides a database of the carbon footprint of construction materials, like timber and concrete. All materials produce C02 from the greenhouse gases used in their manufacture, and EC3 uses Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) to track the varying emissions of materials. An old model of Scope 3 Carbon Accounting measured carbon impact solely in terms of dollar cost multiplied by emissions factor, which results in an inaccurate impact assessment. The EC3 model doesn’t use cost at all. Using an open-source collection process for EPDs modeled on the collection process for Health and Materials declarations, the EC3 tool pinpoints supply chain emissions and accounts for uncertainties in data through a consistent methodology, available on the website. In short, EC3 helps engineers write specifications, contractors procure materials, and building owners make informed decisions about the life cycle impact of new construction.
Stacy believes, as we do, that reductions in climate-changing carbon emissions can only happen with accurate data. Honeycomb Strategies works with our clients to achieve carbon zero by 2050 or earlier. The vast majority of emissions are within the mysterious and nebulous Scope 3 for our clients. To achieve reduction, we must benchmark what the current usage is, then manufacture and implement effective changes in the supply chain. We believe the integration of this tool into the live events industry can help us get to Net Zero. Here’s how we see it being put to work:
First, there’s the low-hanging fruit: any venue owner or operator who is planning new construction, renovations, retrofits or expansions can set low-carbon goals. The EC3 tools allows engineers to specify and contractors to procure materials that meet the goals with confidence.
Secondly, any existing venue operator or owner can benchmark their current materials. This can be useful in environmental reporting to stakeholders. For companies or owners interested in reducing their impact in the long-term, this can be way to track future building improvements from a baseline.
Thirdly, this tool can used in booth and exhibit construction for temporary structures, just like Stacy herself did. In her booth at Greenbuild, Stacy tracked the embodied carbon of every material she used for her booth, so she knew with confidence the impact her materials had on her footprint. In addition to freight, travel, food choices and many other factors in event carbon emissions, the tracking of materials is the largest gap in accounting for the sustainability baseline of the events industry. If event planners asked exhibitors to report on their exhibition footprint, and required footprinting from GSCs and AECs manufacturing booths, it would begin to address this component of Scope 3 emissions. While we work to combat the “build-and-burn” style of temporary structure on the back end to divert waste from the landfill; EC3 allows us to tackle supply chain procurement on the front end.
Some examples from SCA Coffee Expo, NBAA BACE and Natural Products Expo West of people re-thinking sustainable booth design. It’s becoming more important for exhibitors to be sustainable at large events.
The momentum behind Building Transparency keeps increasing. Since 2019 EC3 has grown from 1,000 users to more than 31,000 registered users, demonstrating its demand. In addition to introducing new plugins and capabilities, EC3 works to augment its growing database of EPDs and expand the sectors in which it has relevance. Furthermore, Stacy’s background in cost estimating helped her create not only a database, but a new competition-based economy in which manufacturers compete to get the lowest carbon at the lowest cost in order to meet increasing demand. The industry is changing because of carbon data accounting.
It’s important to Stacy that EC3 remain free and open for use: it’s “something that not just one company has to account for.” It’s a communal responsibility to track and lower carbon for the future health of our communities. We’re excited about the expanded applications for EC3 in our industry and believe all our partners and collaborators should be aware of this free tool to help us get to Net Zero together.
Thank you to Stacy Smedley of Building Transparency for generously sharing her time and work with us.
Additional photo credit to Bryan Beasley for Natural Products Expo West and WASIO Photography for Greenbuild.
All other photos owned by Honeycomb Strategies