Lower-Carbon Concrete Guide

Definitions, Roles & Responsibilities, Specifications, Testing, Bidding

This guide offers information for achieving lower-carbon concrete by outlining a series of best practices and thoughtful decision-making processes throughout the design, specification, procurement, and construction phases of the building construction process. The target audiences are the stakeholders that conceive, specify, and ultimately create the rules for the use of concrete materials within a building project.

While this guide offers information on these topics, it is not a comprehensive resource on the design and construction process for achieving high-quality and ideally lower-carbon concrete construction. Rather, this guide aims to augment and improve, not replace, established design and construction documents and processes. This is especially true for the concrete general notes tables and specifications referenced. This guide also does not attempt to cover the multitude of sustainability decisions every project requires, or life cycle analyses, and other related topics crucial for overall project goals, and for meeting green building rating system requirements. Instead, it focuses on one important part of this larger discussion, the practical steps for achieving lower-carbon concrete goals efficiently and cost-effectively, once these goals are established by others, as part of a broader initiative toward a sustainable built environment.

This document was produced by members of the Lower-Carbon Concrete Task Force supported by the ClimateWorks Foundation.

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