Embodied carbon benchmarking
While the 2030 Commitment is not currently requiring embodied carbon reporting or benchmarking, other organizations have been researching and establishing benchmarks for various building scopes and products. Reducing the environmental impact of projects has long been a key consideration in the architecture community, from increasing operational energy efficiencies to supporting the electrification of buildings. Now, in the face of climate change, addressing embodied carbon is crucial in meeting decarbonization roles. The architecture profession can lead the way in going beyond operational carbon, the emissions associated with the energy used to operate the buildings, through addressing embodied carbon within their projects as well.
AIA’s 2030 Commitment will increasingly be incorporating embodied carbon data into our analysis in order to understand the broader context of building emissions while our Architecture & Design Materials Pledge will be focusing more on the emissions of various building products, components and finishes. Currently, the most established embodied carbon research is being produced by the Carbon Leadership Forum (CLF) who have been compiling data sets to establish initial baselines and benchmarks for the embodied carbon intensity of both structures and materials.
The following graphic from the New Buildings Institute (NBI) explains the various embodied carbon scopes that architects use when measuring a building’s lifecycle and completing lifecycle assessments (LCAs). GHG = greenhouse gas.
CLF Embodied Carbon Project Benchmarks
In order to begin the conversation about embodied carbon benchmarking there are some sharable figures and reports produced by the CLF in 2025 that can help. CLF and the University of Washington’s Life Cycle Lab published The Embodied Carbon Benchmark Report: Embodied Carbon Budgets and Analysis of 292 Buildings in the US and Canada in April of 2025. These figures can help a project team get a sense for what the typical embodied carbon intensities (ECIs) of different building types are, and offer insight into what factors contribute to a project’s ECI.
Table 1. Summary of embodied carbon budgets based on 75th, 50th, and 25th percentiles. SE scope corresponds to foundations, structure and enclosure, with SEI also adding interiors. Life cycle stages are indicated by (A1-A3, A1-A5, A-C without A5, and A-C with A5), where A-C in this report indicates A1-A3, A4, B4-B5, and C2-C4. Units are kgCO2e/m2 normalized by gross floor area (GFA). Values in this table were rounded upward to 10.
CLF found the following key takeaways:
Renovation projects showed significant reduction potentials compared to new construction.
Median embodied carbon intensities of all building use types fell between ~280-680 kgCO2e/m2.
Primary structural system types other than “Wood: Light-frame” showed very similar ECI ranges. This suggests that no structural type is at an implicit disadvantage using WBLCA to decarbonize. This does not, however, disprove the influence of structural system selection at the scale of a single project.
The following ten material groups made up 90% or more of project impacts across our dataset on average, and should be prioritized for decarbonization efforts: Concrete, Steel, Insulation, Gypsum, Wood and composites, Aluminum, Coatings, Flooring and tile, Glazing, and Cladding.
Material use is a key factor in understanding the total embodied carbon of a building. Using materials more efficiently to deliver the same program at a lower material use intensity is a critical strategy.
To learn more an interact with the CLF benchmarks, please see their benchmark explorer tool.
CLF Material Baseline research
In addition the CLF also recently released research for specific materials in their North American Material Baselines Report published in June of 2025. The report analyzes available EPDs to establish baseline GWP values and to describe the available EPD data in North America with the goal of understanding and reducing the embodied carbon of construction products. These values can help a project team get a feel for what embodied carbon estimates might look like for typical building materials and can be used in a baseline building, or when an EPD is unavailable. The following product categories were studied across different geographical regions of the United States (see the report for complete product breakdowns):
cement and concrete
masonry
steel
aluminum
wood
insulation
fire and smoke protection/fireproofing
cladding and roofing
openings (flat glass, glass panes, IGU and curtain walls)
finishes
asphalt
In response to CLF’s newly published research outlined above, AIA will begin to incorporate these baselines and benchmarks into its own Climate Action Pledge Programs in alignment of CLF’s stated goal to provide “industry-average embodied carbon data [to] support the measurement and tracking of industry progress over time to reduce emissions.”
Additional definitions and resources
AIA-CLF Embodied Carbon Toolkit for Architects provides architects with an overview and the necessary steps to be taken to reduce embodied carbon in their projects. This resource is divided into three parts, introducing the necessary steps and resources to take to track and reduce embodied carbon in the built environment.
ECI: Embodied Carbon Intensity, ECI refers to the total embodied carbon emitted per unit of building area (kg CO2e/m²), allowing for the comparison of the embodied carbon footprint of different buildings and materials.
EPD: Environmental Product Declarations, EPDs are standardized, third-party-verified documents that report the environmental impacts of a product based on a product life cycle assessment (LCA). Learn more by visiting the CLF’s Embodied Carbon Accounting for Materials Toolkit.
GWP: Global Warming Potential (GWP) is the metric used to measure the potential climate change impact of a product or process in a life cycle assessment and is reported in units of carbon dioxide equivalent (kg CO2e). The “equivalent” or “e” in “kg CO₂e” means that other greenhouse gases like methane are included alongside carbon dioxide and normalized to the impact of CO₂ based on their radiative forcing potentials relative to CO₂. Learn more by visiting CLF’s Embodied Carbon 101 Toolkit.
LCA: Life cycle assessment is a methodology that is used to measure the environmental impacts of a building, product, or process over its full life cycle, from raw material extraction through end-of-life and disposal. LCA measures impacts through a variety of metrics, such as global warming potential, acidification potential, eutrophication potential, smog formation potential, and ozone depletion potential.
WBLCA: Whole building life cycle assessment provides an assessment of the embodied carbon impact of a whole building. This includes the impact of all materials used in the project, or a subset of the project, like structure and/or envelope, throughout the life cycle of the building.