MONTGOMERY, Ala. (July 17, 2024) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that Alabama will benefit from four grants totaling approximately $20.8M to support efforts to report and reduce climate pollution from the manufacturing of construction materials. EPA estimates that the construction materials used in buildings and other built infrastructure account for more than 15% of annual global greenhouse gas emissions.
Billions of tons of concrete, asphalt, steel, glass and other construction materials and products are required to build, maintain and operate our country’s buildings and infrastructure. The U.S. leads the world in the production of clean construction materials, and these transformative awards from President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act—the largest climate investment in history–will reduce climate pollution by helping businesses measure the carbon emissions associated with extracting, transporting and manufacturing their products.
The grants will support the Biden-Harris Administration’s Federal Buy Clean Initiative, which leverages the U.S. government’s sway as the largest purchaser on Earth to catalyze demand for clean construction materials used in federal buildings, highways, and infrastructure projects. The grants will be awarded to businesses, universities and nonprofit organizations serving all 50 states and will help disclose the environmental impacts associated with manufacturing concrete, asphalt, glass, steel, wood and other materials.
- Knauf Insulation, Inc. (Knauf) has been selected to receive $3,283,879 for work in Alabama, California, Indiana, Michigan, Texas and West Virginia. Knauf is a building materials company that manufactures fiberglass insulation, delivering thermal and acoustical solutions for residential, commercial, industrial and OEM applications. Knauf’s project will aim to improve the quantity, quality and robustness of data used to develop Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), exemplify best practices as related to data disclosure and verification, and spur market demand for low embodied carbon construction products. Knauf’s goal is to develop EPDs for 100% of Knauf’s product portfolio, including new and optimized versions of current EPDs. In addition, Knauf will produce a best practice manual on EPD development for industry-wide stakeholders and provide educational seminars to employees at Knauf manufacturing facilities on greenhouse gas reductions.
- HOLCIM US, Inc. has been selected to receive $1,371,814 for work in Alabama, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas and Utah. In the U.S., Holcim is the largest cement manufacturer and top five producer in aggregates and ready-mix concrete, with approximately 7,000 employees. Holcim’s EPD Accelerator Project will increase the transparency of data on environmental emissions associated with the production of construction materials, generate robust EPDs with a diversity of manufacturers from across the U.S., and drive market demand for lower carbon construction materials.
- Hemp Building Institute (HBI) has been selected to receive $6,186,200 for work in Alabama, California, Maryland and Tennessee. HBI is nonprofit organization that provides support for entities that manufacture, remanufacture and refurbish construction materials and products. Biogenic materials from agricultural crops such as hemp, soy, and straw bale provide a unique opportunity to directly address climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the built environment. The Biogenic Building Materials project will focus on developing EPDs and life cycle assessments for biogenic materials. This project will create a standardized cradle-to-gate product category rules (PCRs) for agricultural crop components that will be combined with gate-to-grave, industry-determined PCRs to create a practical EPD generator tool for biogenic building materials. The overall goal of the project is to assemble the assessments, protocols, tools and training in an ecosystem designed to increase adoption of biogenic building materials from agricultural crops.
- Oklahoma State University has been selected to receive $9,990,311 for work in Alabama, Guam, Hawaii, Illinois, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Puerto Rico and Washington. Oklahoma State University is leading the creation of the National Center for Sustainable Construction Materials to promote low carbon construction materials (LCCMs) and generate robust EPDs for materials such as asphalt, concrete, steel and their additives. In collaboration with 11 universities across the United States, including the University of Illinois and University of North Carolina at Charlotte, the project will provide extensive training, create educational programs, and design tools and incentives for adopting LCCMs.
“As America continues to build more and upgrade our nation’s infrastructure under President Biden’s leadership, cleaner construction materials like concrete and steel are increasingly essential for the nation’s prosperity,” said EPA Deputy Administrator Janet McCabe. “These historic investments will expand market access for a new generation of more climate-friendly construction materials, and further grow American jobs that are paving the way to the clean energy economy.”
The grants will help businesses develop robust, high-quality EPDs, which show environmental impacts across the life of a product and can catalyze more sustainable purchasing decisions by allowing buyers to compare. Investments in data and tools will make high-quality EPDs available for 14 material categories, which include both new and salvaged or reused materials. These efforts will help standardize and expand the market for construction products with lower greenhouse gas emissions. They will make it easier for federal, state and local governments and other institutional buyers to ensure the construction projects they fund use more climate-friendly products and materials.
EPA is also announcing expanded technical assistance opportunities to businesses, the federal government and other organizations across America. EPA will initially offer EPD development support and direct businesses to resources to help them measure and reduce the embodied carbon associated with their materials, such as those provided by the ENERGY STAR Industrial program. Federal agencies and their suppliers will be able to compare the climate impact of various materials to drive near-term greenhouse gas emissions reductions. Robust EPD data will be further strengthened by a new label program under development that will identify low carbon construction materials for the growing Buy Clean marketplace.
Together, the grants and technical assistance programs will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and support American jobs. These programs are made possible by the Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which creates significant investments aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions associated with the extraction, transport and manufacturing of construction materials and products. The Inflation Reduction Act also provides more than $2 billion to the General Services Administration to use low embodied carbon materials in the construction and renovation of federal buildings and $2 billion to the Federal Highway Administration to incentivize or reimburse the use of low embodied carbon construction materials in certain transportation projects.
Selections are contingent upon completion of legal and administrative requirements and grantees are tentatively expected to receive their funding in late summer.
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