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Far from Glasgow and COP26, Ithaca, New York, just made an unprecedented move to tackle climate change and the city’s carbon footprint. In a unanimous vote on Wednesday night, Ithaca’s city council approved the full decarbonization of its buildings. — CNBC
This is the first US city to begin work on a 100% decarbonization plan. It secured $100 million in private financing from private equity partner Alturus to support the effort, a move that may be more effective in tackling emissions than federal and state efforts. Ithaca’s energy efficiency... View full entry
Plans to operate commercial hydrogen-electric flights between London and Rotterdam have been announced, with those behind the project hoping it will take to the skies in 2024. In a statement Wednesday, aviation firm ZeroAvia said it was developing a 19-seater aircraft that would “fly entirely on hydrogen.” — CNBC
ZeroAvia, Dutch airport management company Royal Schiphol Group, Rotterdam The Hague Innovation Airport Foundation, and Rotterdam the Hague Airport have announced a partnership to develop the project. The initiative sets a timeline for potentially the first international zero-emission commercial... View full entry
Backers of the law say the labels, or “environmental product declarations,” will be another key factor in cutting greenhouse gas emissions in Colorado and worldwide. The clean energy think tank RMI says building emissions make up at least 39% of the global greenhouse total, and that the carbon created in producing the materials for those buildings is at least 25% of that. — Colorado Sun
via Carbon Leadership Forum Michael Booth reports on Colorado House Bill 21-1303 aka "Buy Clean Colorado" passed earlier this year, which will require a carbon-use label aka "environmental product declarations" for materials used in public construction projects. View full entry
The Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA) announced that forty of the world’s leading cement and concrete manufacturers have come together to commit to cut carbon dioxide emissions by a quarter by 2030. This is a major statement in the association’s race to produce carbon-neutral... View full entry
Researchers from the University of Tokyo’s Department of Architecture have developed a promising new kind of concrete that has the potential to reduce emissions from the construction industry. Approximately 7% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions come from the manufacture and use of... View full entry
New York is aiming to ban the sale of all gas-powered vehicles in the state by 2035. A bill amending the state's environmental conservation law was passed by the state's Senate and Assembly and signed by Governor Kathy Hochul last week. — CBS News
At the start of this month, Assembly Bill A4302 was signed by New York Governor Kathy Hochul, which would require that all in-state sales of new passenger cars and trucks have zero emissions by 2035. The law also requires that all medium- and heavy-duty vehicles sold in New York be emission-free... View full entry
Known as the Low Embodied Carbon Concrete Leadership Act (LECCLA), the legislation requires New York to set an emissions standard for concrete used in public works.
If Governor Kathy Hochul signs the bill into law, New York will become one of the first states in the country to start cleaning up this highly polluting sector of the economy.
— New York Focus
The proposed law would be the first of its kind in New York and would place the state in league with New Jersey and Colorado, which just passed a similar measure aimed at reducing emissions by 90% within thirty years. Cement is the basis of traditional concrete mixes and currently accounts for an... View full entry
I would argue that everything has a footprint, and in relative terms, the carbon footprint of air travel is relatively small. That does not mean it shouldn’t be addressed, but I do feel passionately that we have to address the infrastructure of mobility. — Bloomberg
Norman Foster's airport projects have drawn in an increasing amount of business for the 54-year-old firm in the last two decades. Foster went as far last year as to withdraw the firm from Architects Declare, the group his firm joined the year prior to promote a broader set of climate change... View full entry
Swedish steel manufacturer SSAB has announced that it has produced the world’s first fossil-free steel. As part of a trial delivery, the steel was sent to its first customer, Swedish automaker Volvo Group. The first-of-its-kind steel was developed through HYBRIT, an initiative formed in... View full entry
A new study out of Aalto University in Finland shows that building with wood can be economically feasible. The research team analyzed statistical data from real estate sales in the Finnish capital of Helsinki and two suburbs between the years of 1999 and 2018. Of these, timber-built homes... View full entry
Results of a new five-year study of recycled concrete show that it performs as well, and in several cases even better, than conventional concrete. Researchers conducted side-by-side comparisons of recycled and conventional concrete within two common applications -- a building foundation and a municipal sidewalk. They found that the recycled concrete had comparable strength and durability after five years of being in service. — Science Daily
Find the complete study Recycled aggregate concrete from large-scale production to sustainable field application by University of British Columbia Okanagan researchers here. View full entry
In response to the idea of the “city of tomorrow,” one that will become carbon neutral by 2050, French architecture firm Rescubika created a proposal for a 2,418-foot tower on Roosevelt Island. With wood construction materials, 36 wind turbines, 8,300 shrubs, 1,600 tress, 83,000 square feet of plant walls, and nearly 23,000 square feet of solar panels, it would be the world’s tallest “carbon sink” tower–one that absorbs more CO2 than it releases. — 6sqft
In recent decades, architects, developers and policymakers seeking to lower the carbon footprint of buildings have focused on reducing energy use by improving the efficiency of lighting, heating and other systems. To lower emissions even further, they are looking beyond such operational matters to the carbon emitted in the production and transportation of the materials that make up the structures, or so-called embodied carbon. — The New York Times
Jane Margolies of The New York Times surveys advances in concrete decarbonization strategies, highlighting a set of concrete manufacturers that are using novel additives and different concrete recipes to save on carbon emissions. Margolies takes a look at LafargeHolcim, Solidia... View full entry
A UCLA research team led by Gaurav Sant, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and of material science and engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, has received a two-year, $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. The award supports the development of a... View full entry
The key binding ingredient in concrete is cement, which has a massive carbon footprint. [...] So Sant and his team set to work on a greener approach that starts with a compound called portlandite instead of traditional Portland cement.
The production of portlandite also releases CO2. But its unique chemistry allows it to absorb CO2 later in the process, when the concrete cures and hardens into precast blocks and other shapes.
— The Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times takes a look at the University of California, Los Angeles-based Carbon Upcycling team's efforts to bring CO2Concrete, a carbon-sequestering cement product, to the market. The team is vying for the Carbon XPRIZE, a $7.5 million prize competition aimed at monetizing carbon... View full entry
