What is Your Building’s Carbon Footprint?

As design professionals and consumers, we have become smarter about the decisions we make in selecting building products and we are asking more questions of the vendors and manufacturers.  We now have the knowledge to evaluate and select green materials such as FSC certified wood or a solar photovoltaic system.  However, we can take it to the next level by trying to understand how much energy usage and carbon emissions have resulted from the process, production, and transportation of the products, and then re-evaluate from an overall perspective the actual “green-ness” of the product.  Even if one specifies a flooring material made of the most renewable resource, how sustainable is that decision when one takes into account that the product is manufactured in a high energy consuming factory and has to travel half way around the world to reach its project destination?

San Francisco-based Climate Earth has developed a tool to help manufacturers and builders evaluate how green their company is in terms of carbon impact and account for their carbon emissions resulting from their business management methods.  Its carbon management system accounts for different items ranging from the gas and electrical usage required to manufacture the products, to the distances traveled to deliver raw and finished materials, as well as the amount of company air travel.

Climate Earth sells a subscription software service that helps businesses measure and track greenhouse gas emissions and energy use in their business operations as well as building products.  A quantitative database of carbon emissions of building materials will empower us to understand the impact of the choices that we make and give us another metric against which we can evaluate green products and the sustainability of our buildings.

Climate Earth’s website hosts webinars on related topics such as how renewable energy credits can help a company build a renewable energy strategy.  The upcoming webinar, “A Business Primer on Renewable Energy Credits” takes place this Thursday, July 16, 2009 and will be hosted by Jennifer Giles and Jennifer Martin, Director and Deputy Director at the Center for Resource Solutions.

To register for the webinar, go to https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/500771922.