This 2020 policy framework from the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance is intended for cities and other government bodies to develop a strategy, action plan and policies they can adopt to dramatically reduce embodied carbon, defined as carbon emissions from manufacture, transport, use and end of life of construction materials. This is a manual and a blueprint for cities who understand that reducing and eliminating embodied carbon is critical to their climate objectives, and wish to understand what they can do, how to do it, and what the most carbon-reducing, cost-effective, easiest-to-implement, and enforceable policies are that could be adopted to spur and accelerate the transformation to low carbon construction.
This report contains 52 policies cities can adopt to reduce embodied carbon. It collects best practices, mostly from cities in Europe and North America, and introduces new policies, not yet implemented anywhere in the world. The policies listed are most applicable for Europe and North America, and may need adaptation for other regions. All listed policies are evaluated for their impact. This research specifically concerns embodied carbon. Policies for other industries or processes are not considered.
See pages 62-64 on Low Carbon Cement and Concrete policies, including model code language.