In January, we set out a clear objective for the year: to establish a robust foundation for how we track, report, and ultimately reduce the embodied carbon intensity of our building structures. Embodied carbon – greenhouse gas emissions associate with material production, transportation, construction, and end-of-life – remains a critical lever in lowering the overall environmental impact of the built environment.

Alongside this, we aimed to advance education on this topic internally and across the broader industry. As a firm, we can be proud of what we have achieved this year, and we are certainly looking ahead with momentum as this work continues into 2026.

Tracking + Reporting

Our primary goal was to overhaul our embodied carbon measurement tools which we completed in March —enabling us to begin measuring buildings right away. Overall, we ran 26 projects through our LCA tool, covering 7.3 million SF of Gross Floor Area (GFA) – this is the above-grade internal area of the buildings. The built floor area of these projects (including parking and exterior areas) totaled 11.4 million SF.

For our overall benchmark, we are going to track two metrics:

  • ECI (VBBL): Following common benchmarking practices such as the City of Vancouver, this metric sums the total life-cycle material emissions (Commonly known as modules A-C and covers the full material life cycle from raw material extraction to demolition and disposal) and divides this total by the Gross Floor Area.
  • ECI (SCORS): Following the SCORS rating system defined by the Institute of Structural Engineers, this covers the early material production and transport life cycle stages and uses the total built floor area to provide a metric more focused on structural design efficiency.

This table includes our 2030 targets, as part of our commitment to reduce the ECI in our building structures by 20% every 5 years, to net-zero at 2050. We will have a much more detailed breakdown of these results in our 2025 ECAP, which will be uploaded to the SE2050 website in the spring.

Below are two charts showing the individual data points, the size of each data point is proportional to the project floor area:

 

Education and Advocacy

Education remained a key pillar of our sustainability efforts. In May, we held our company technical retreat, where sustainability came up in many of the topics. In June, we published our embodied carbon study on the efficiencies of the Senakw development hosted on the Carbon Leadership Forum BC platform. This fall, we also released an internal guidebook this ensuring our engineers have access to the current tools, data, and best practices.

Externally, we also shared our strategies and findings to multiple architecture firms and developers. In these events, we discuss when we can make the most impact and what aspects to look out for. We continue to find this exchange both valuable and energizing, and we look forward to expanding this work in the coming year.

Keeping OnTrack

Lastly, we have achieved our goal of monthly posts this year and look forward to doing the same next year. I’ve listed all the posts from this year and a brief synopsis below in case you want to go back and catch up.

That is a wrap on 2025. We will share our plans for the year ahead in January, but for now, we are proud of the progress made and we are excited to continue advancing meaningful, measurable sustainability outcomes after the holiday break.

Together, we can contribute to a more sustainable built environment. If you are interested in sustainability and would like to discuss any of the topics in this article, please get in touch with us at [email protected].

For more information on our sustainability initiatives and to stay updated on our latest projects, visit our website and follow our “OnTrack” blog series.

Written by Rory Roberts, P Eng – Director of Sustainability

We laid out our plans for 2025.

How delaying the curing strength of concrete can save carbon emissions, and when to use this phenomenon.

A review of the embodied carbon optimizations in one of our institutional projects.

Our new in-house LCA tool, and how we use it to measure and optimize the embodied carbon of our projects.

A discussion on the choices of material for non-structural walls and how they compare in terms of embodied carbon.

The TL:DR of our embodied carbon case study for the senakw development, funded by the City of Vancouver and hosted on the CLFBC hub.

Highlights of our company-wide technical retreat and what we learned within the sustainability sphere.

  • August: Decarbonizing Construction Materials: Concrete, Steel, and Timber

Where the carbon emissions in construction materials come from and how the industry plans to reduce them.

One of the ways we used to track structural efficiency and if they are still relevant in today’s designs.

How energy dissipation devices can lead to more efficient material use in elements that resist wind and seismic forces.

How advanced structural analysis methods and their impact on material quantities.