Where Embodied Carbon Meets Circular Economy
Past Event: Feb 13, 2025 @ 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Podcast
Slideshow
Overview
Reducing embodied carbon and advancing the circular economy are increasingly important efforts in the sustainability realm – but how do they relate to each other in practice?
For example, directly reusing structure and envelope components to serve new functions is the most carbon-efficient end-of-life scenario for a building. However, if this isn’t an available option to owners, builders, and designers – the next best thing is to reuse materials and design flexible and adaptable structures that can be deconstructed at the end of a building’s use. By holding onto materials at the end of life and optimizing their reuse potential, not only will this disrupt industry with a flow of low-carbon materials, but this will also increase diversion of construction and demolition waste from landfills and reduce extraction and use of virgin materials.
In this Decarb Lunch we learn more about the relationship between embodied carbon and circular design principles and how embodied carbon reductions can be achieved through deconstruction, reuse, and designing for disassembly.
Thanks to the generous support of BC Hydro and the City of Vancouver, this event was free.
Speakers
Stephanie Dalo, Carbon Leadership Forum BC Program Manager, ZEIC
Stephanie is a licensed Professional Engineer in British Columbia and Ontario and is the Program Manager of the Carbon Leadership Forum in British Columbia (CLF BC), a program powered by the Zero Emissions Innovation Centre (ZEIC).
Starting her professional journey as a structural engineer, specializing in bridge rehabilitation, her passion for sustainability led her to the UBC Master of Engineering Leadership, Urban Systems program. After obtaining her master degree, she began working on mixed-use, multi-family residential, commercial, institutional, and office buildings, guiding project owners in identifying their sustainability strategy, coordinating and facilitating communication between design teams to keep projects on track towards meeting their sustainability goals. This included conducting Whole Building Life Cycle Assessments to determine a project’s embodied carbon impact and proposing low-carbon design solutions.
Host
Natalie Douglas, ZEBx Program Manager, ZEIC
Sheila Molloy, Coast Waste Management Association (CWMA)
