ACMA Urges EPA To Broaden Labeling Program & Examine Full Life Cycle During Project Designs
In comments filed with the Biden Administration’s proposed labeling program ACMA argues that a proposed green labeling initiative for construction materials will fall short of its goals by limiting the types of materials covered. ACMA argued the most significant emission reductions will often be achieved by considering, during the design phase of a project, the full lifecycle emissions associated with functionally equivalent alternative products such as steel and composite rebar.
ACMA also believes the proposed program will inappropriately pick winners and losers and distort the market for construction materials, increasing prices and introducing supply uncertainty, and shift the market to larger companies better able to comply with EPA’s administrative requirements for participation in the labeling program.
EPA’s draft approach for labeling and ranking construction products according to their “embodied carbon” (emission of climate warming gases) will initially only consider the production-phase emissions of steel, plate glass, asphalt, and concrete, and aims only to inform sourcing decisions after a project’s design phase at which construction materials are selected.
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