Climate Mitigation through Adopting a Low-Carbon Concrete Building Code

Marin County in California adopts a low-carbon concrete building code. “This new code applies to all private and public construction projects involving concrete in Marin County and will take effect January 1, 2020” announced on the Sierra Club California website (Marin County Adopts, 2019).

The announcement further says that “the low-carbon concrete ordinance is part of a larger wave of policies that aim to address embodied carbon emissions in building materials”. The county also hopes that local governments in the Bay Area and beyond will pass similar policies (Marin County Adopts, 2019).

Local government policies and ordinance that applies climate mitigation actions send a message that climate change is happening. Therefore we should act now rather than wait for more extreme climate events to occur before doing climate mitigation and adaptation as these would be much costlier as studies shows.

Cement is one of the most widely used material as most of the built environment is made from it. However, its production is highly carbon-intensive and accounts for around 8% of the world’s total carbon dioxide emissions. China is the world’s highest producer of cement, followed by India, and the European Union (Rodgers, 2018).

Some concrete and cement manufacturers are already using technology to reduce CO2 emissions at production which is quite encouraging (The future with, 2018).

Marin County has instituted climate mitigation solution through the adoption of the low-carbon concrete building code. A model for other towns and cities.

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Source citations:

Marin County Adopts Low-Carbon Concrete Building Code. (2019, November 19). Sierra Club California. Retrieved from https://www.sierraclub.org/california/marin-county-adopts-low-carbon-concrete-building-code

Rodgers, L. (2018, December 17). Climate change: The massive CO2 emitter you may not know about. BBC News. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46455844

The future with lower carbon concrete. (2018, November 14). New Scientist. Retrieved from https://www.newscientist.com/article/2185217-the-future-with-lower-carbon-concrete/