This paper examines material use, material intensity, and embodied greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across five real refurbishment, renovation, and adaptive reuse projects in Canada and the U.S. The study quantifies materials removed, retained, and added. We find that...
In line with Canadian low-carbon roadmaps, the cement and concrete sector need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to achieve net-zero targets by 2050. As clinker production is the primary source of cement-related CO2 emissions, reducing clinker content through...
The problem To grow housing without growing emissions, the AEC sector must rapidly scale lower-carbon, high-performance materials such as mass timber. Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) has become a leading panelized option for mid- to high-rise buildings as codes in Canada...
On May 7, 2025, over 200 delegates gathered at the University of Toronto for the second Embodied GHG Symposium, co-hosted by Prof. Shoshanna Saxe, director of the Centre for the Sustainable Built Environment (CSBE) and the School of Cities. The symposium brought...
Full article: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921344925004252?via%3DihubPre-print: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5247212 The growing global population is increasing the demand for housing at the same time as the ecological limits requires much more...
Pre-print (pre–peer review) version of the manuscript, available online: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5251970Rapid growth of urban construction threatens global climate targets. Cities have a lot of influence over what gets built and the associated greenhouse gas (GHG)...
Most research on the environmental impact of buildings focuses on new construction, but growing interest in the circular economy has shown that renovating existing buildings can also be a valuable way to provide additional housing while maximizing the use of existing...
Canada is simultaneously facing two disruptive 21st Century challenges 1) in light of a growing population, there is an increasing need for housing and supportive infrastructure and 2) the need to reduce consumption to achieve greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in line...
Pre-print (pre–peer review) version of the manuscript, available online as open access: https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-6001700/v1 Societies across the globe are simultaneously trying to build significantly more housing to meet the needs of a growing...
This study estimates building attributes—floor area and age—using image-based machine learning. Building age and floor area are key inputs to the studies of urban metabolism, material stocks and flows, and embodied greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the built environment....
On March 13th 2024, over 200 delegates gathered at the University of Toronto to discuss embodied GHG, total GHG budgets for the architecture, engineering and construction sector and pathways to build more with less. The symposium focused on: How can Canada meet the...
Canada is simultaneously facing two disruptive 21st Century challenges 1) in light of a growing population, there is an increasing need for housing and supportive infrastructure and 2) the need to reduce consumption to achieve greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in...
Residential building form and strategies for more efficient housing In this paper, we quantify the impact of residential form on embodied emissions. Specifically, we look at the reduction potential of missing middle (low-rise multi-unit) housing, compare missing...
Rising social and economic pressures to build more housing and infrastructure are in tension with the need to rapidly reduce GHG emissions from resource extraction and use. This paper presents the Future Infrastructure Growth (FIG) model: an open data, bottom-up,...
This paper examines the tension between needing to build more infrastructure and housing and simultaneously reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change. This study uses an Environmentally Extended Input-Output...
We provide a legally-grounded and theoretically-oriented approach to the question of how large a home needs to be for it to count as adequate from the point of view of the right to housing. We propose that a rich understanding of the reasons for which there is such a...