About the author  ⁄ Kate Simonen, AIA, S.E.

Kate Simonen is the Founding Director of the Carbon Leadership Forum at the University of Washington. Kate directs the research of the Carbon Leadership Forum and leads collaborative initiatives such as the Embodied Carbon Network, the Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator (the EC3 tool), and the Structural Engineers 2050 Challenge.

Challenges and Opportunities for Structural Engineers

Architecture 2030 (architecture2030.org) reports that, between now and 2060, growth in the world’s population will require a doubling in the amount of building floor-space, equivalent to building an entire New York City every month for 40 years. Much of the carbon footprint of these new buildings will take the form of embodied carbon – the carbon emissions associated with building construction, including extracting, transporting, and manufacturing materials. As a result, owners, designers, engineers, and contractors are turning their attention to building materials and seeking information on these products so they can make more environmentally informed and smarter choices.

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STRUCTURE magazine