A Primer on Embodied Carbon in Climate Disclosure

This guide by RMI explains the importance of integrating embodied carbon reporting into Scope 3 climate disclosures for the real estate industry. It details the regulatory and investor pressures driving this shift, provides a framework for categorizing and calculating embodied emissions, and outlines a path toward net-zero targets.

• Embodied carbon represents a significant portion of a building's total climate impact, potentially accounting for up to 50% of the total carbon footprint over its life cycle for new projects. This percentage can increase for zero-energy or energy-efficient buildings. According to the CDP, capital goods make up 49% of the real estate sector's GHG emissions impact.
• There is increasing pressure from major investors and regulators for companies to disclose Scope 3 emissions. Asset managers such as BlackRock, State Street Global Advisors, and the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) have advocated for or required Scope 3 accounting. Additionally, the SEC has announced efforts to standardize climate-related disclosures, and California has enacted a law requiring large companies operating in the state to disclose annual greenhouse gas emissions, including Scope 3 impacts.
• RMI recommends that real estate firms move from spend-based emissions calculations, which are considered inaccurate proxies, to mass-based emissions calculations. This method uses material quantities combined with emissions data from environmental product declarations (EPDs) or life-cycle inventory (LCI) databases. For up-front emissions tracking, only the A1–A3 life-cycle phases (extraction through manufacturing) should be used from EPDs.
• To manage embodied carbon over a building's entire life span and facilitate material circularity, the document suggests using material passports. These passports transfer data from as-built whole-building life-cycle assessments (LCA) to tracking logs, effectively treating buildings as material banks.

APA

RMI (2023). A Primer on Embodied Carbon in Climate Disclosure. https://rmi.org/resources/a-primer-on-embodied-carbon-in-climate-disclosure/

Chicago

RMI. A Primer on Embodied Carbon in Climate Disclosure. 2023. https://rmi.org/resources/a-primer-on-embodied-carbon-in-climate-disclosure/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=RMI |title=A Primer on Embodied Carbon in Climate Disclosure |date=5 October 2023 |url=https://rmi.org/resources/a-primer-on-embodied-carbon-in-climate-disclosure/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{rmi2023primer, author = {{RMI}}, title = {{A Primer on Embodied Carbon in Climate Disclosure}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2023}, month = oct, url = {https://rmi.org/resources/a-primer-on-embodied-carbon-in-climate-disclosure/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }