Elementa Consulting Join Carbon Leadership Forum MEP 2040 Challenge
Elementa Consulting, a member of Integral Group, proudly support the Carbon Leadership Forum as a signatory member of the MEP 2040 Challenge. To address the impact of the built environment on climate change, systems engineers have a critical role to play in both operational and embodied carbon and need to embrace a whole life carbon approach to MEP design. While low operational carbon and passive design measures have been a target for some time, setting low embodied carbon targets for systems is quite new.
Elementa encourage its clients and colleagues in the built environment to join them in signing onto the CLF 2040 MEP Challenge, as this issue must be tackled together industry-wide to address climate change. Learn how your organization can get involved here.
About the MEP 2040 Challenge
In April 2021, Carbon Leadership Forum (CLF) systems engineering and designer members, including Elementa Consulting’s Global Lead of Sustainable Innovation, Louise Hamot, gathered to discuss how to galvanize MEP design firms and systems manufacturers to radically reduce embodied carbon in their projects and products. The group was inspired by the Structural Engineering Institute’s SE 2050 Challenge calling for “all structural engineers to understand, reduce and ultimately eliminate embodied carbon in their projects by 2050.”
Beginning in May 2021, the MEP 2040 team met with CLF staff to develop a data-driven commitment for MEP engineering firms to work towards total life cycle decarbonization including embodied along with operational carbon. Recognizing the increased urgency of action, this team set the year 2040 as their target and launched the MEP 2040 Challenge.
By adopting this Commitment, each signatory firm confirms that it will:
- Establish a company plan to reduce operational and embodied carbon across MEP systems on all projects, targeting zero by 2040. Measure and report progress against that plan annually.
- Request low-GWP refrigerant availability when designing systems to reduce or eliminate GHG emissions from refrigerants.
- Request Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) in project specifications for MEP system components.
- Participate in a quarterly MEP 2040 Forum and a CLF Community discussion group to share lessons learned and contribute to a growing body of knowledge.
Do you need MEP Whole Life Carbon work for your project? Please reach out to Louise Hamot and the Life Cycle Assessment team here.
MEP Embodied Carbon Research Projects
For the past four years, Louise Hamot, and her team have been trying to address the building industry knowledge gap around embodied carbon and MEP design by researching and developing new standards in the area of MEP embodied carbon and building whole life cycle assessment.
To date, Elementa have completed more than ten projects that include deep MEP whole life carbon calculations. Some notable work includes:
Industry Collaboration in Whole Life Carbon
Additionally, the Elementa team continue to collaborate with clients across the built environment to educate and generate momentum around the importance of whole life carbon in MEP systems. Some examples include:
Outreach + Education
Furthering the commitment to accelerating change in the building industry, the Elementa Life Cycle Assessment team has provided outreach and education in the following forums:
The Future of MEP Embodied Carbon Innovation
Elementa are currently working on a plan to expand the research and knowledge to enable more widely whole life carbon calculations for all projects. Watch this space for further developments.
Elementa encourage clients and colleagues in the built environment to join them in signing onto the CLF MEP 2040 Challenge, as this issue must be tackled together industry-wide to address climate change. Learn how your organization can get involved here.
Do you need MEP Whole Life Carbon work for your project? Please reach out to Louise Hamot and the Life Cycle Assessment team here.
About Carbon Leadership Forum
The Carbon Leadership Forum (CLF) was founded to accelerate the transformation of the building sector to radically reduce the embodied carbon in building materials and construction through collective action. Members pioneer research, create resources, foster cross-collaboration, and incubate member-led initiatives to bring embodied carbon emissions of buildings down to zero. CLF is comprised of architects, engineers, contractors, material suppliers, building owners, and policymakers who care about the future and are taking bold steps to decarbonize the built environment, with a keen focus on eliminating embodied carbon from buildings and infrastructure. CLF envisions a transformed, decarbonized building industry – better buildings for a better planet.