Researchers at Penn State are set to undertake a study of the environmental impact of construction. The interdisciplinary team, led by associate professor Rahman Azari from the university’s architecture school, will study the embodied carbon emissions associated with the manufacturing, transportation, and construction of materials used in urban buildings, as well as their demolition.

The research project is titled Urban Embodied Carbon: Impact on embodied carbon performance of the building sector in cities, and will move forward with the help of a $29,100 grant from the Institutes of Energy and the Environment.

Azari will be joined by computer science and engineering associate professor Mehrdad Mahdavi, architecture associate professor Lisa Iulo, and business assistant teaching professor Mostafa Sabbaghi.

“This team will apply the research methods and modelling techniques found in various fields of architecture and urban design/planning, industrial ecology, and computer science and engineering to create models that assess, explain and predict embodied carbon at the urban scale,” said Azari.

The project is in response to projections that the U.S. urban population is expected to grow by 89% by 2050, leading to an increase in construction and renovation, generating embodied carbon emissions which already account for 11% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

“Urban embodied carbon is primarily affected by the type and quantity of the materials used in building construction, supply chain of materials, transportation modes and the distances between material suppliers and construction sites, and the technology used by manufacturers to produce building products,” Azari explains.

The team therefore seeks to develop a framework of top-down and bottom-up approaches to measuring embodied carbon. Solutions already suggested for lowering urban emissions include compact cities, high-rise construction, concentrated infrastructure, and energy-efficient building forms. The research team seeks to analyze and validate these solutions from an embodied carbon perspective in order to inform future development.

News of the research comes weeks after NASA announced plans to explore the potential for green roofs to lower temperature in cities. Back in February, the World Economic Forum published its own framework for decarbonizing buildings, while in January, the Yale School of the Environment assisted in the launch of a project to use New York’s Central Park as a site for climate change research.