Concrete is the most used building material in the world; in fact, it is used twice as much as any other material in construction. Now, a new framework, the CarbonStar Standard,  has been created to reduce the carbon footprint of concrete in Canada and the U.S.

A press release jointly issued by The Smart Surfaces Coalition, CSA Group, the World Cement Association, and the American Public Health Association announced the new standard on October 30, 2024. 

Greg Kats, CEO of the Smart Surfaces Coalition, explains the importance of this new framework: “CarbonStar is the only binational standard for the quantification and verification of the carbon intensity in concrete. We are working with cities that make up more than 10 percent of the US population, and our city partners all want to cut pollution and become more resilient. CarbonStar is essential because it is the first user-friendly standard enabling cities to effectively quantify and decarbonize their concrete.”

The CarbonStar system was modeled on the EnergyStar program for appliances. It measures the carbon intensity of concrete to encourage builders to use more environmentally friendly materials. The CardonStar program was developed to support more sustainable construction practices and provide easy-to-understand guidelines and transparency.

The CarbonStar standard will be applied in the United States and Canada. The system was created to address the need for a universal approach for calculating the carbon intensity of concrete. The standard would allow design and construction professionals to quantify the carbon content of various concrete products and apply that standardized system across projects, materials, or production methods. 

Sarah Saltzer is part of the committee that developed the CarbonStar standard and is Managing Director of the Stanford Center for Carbon Storage within the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. She says this system is essential to combat climate change: “Successful climate-change mitigation and carbon sequestration requires rigorous consensus standards. CarbonStar provides this for the essential effort of decarbonizing concrete.” 

Visit http://www.carbonstarstandard.org/ for more information about the CarbonStar system.

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