Buy Clean: A First Step in Low-Carbon Standards

Published by Green Building Advisor: The federal government is ramping up efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions with the Federal Buy Clean Initiative, a plan to use the government’s enormous buying power to force wider use of low-carbon building materials. Although the strategy initially will affect only federal construction and paving projects, experts say that ultimately it will give residential builders much easier access to building materials that help dampen global warming.

This year New Buildings Institute spearheaded an unsuccessful effort to have embodied carbon standards written into the International Building Code, which does not apply to one- and two-family dwellings. There is apparently no effort underway to include limits on embodied carbon in the International Residential Code, which does apply to single-family and small multi-family projects.