Overview
In partnership with the Mayor’s Office of Climate & Environmental Justice (MOCEJ), C2SMART is collaborating on a year-long collaborative study made possible through Town+Gown NYC. This effort will build off of the team’s strengths in building information modeling, life-cycle cost analysis, and low-carbon applications in engineering, design, and construction.
Embodied carbon represents the greenhouse gas emissions generated from a building’s construction or retrofit to its eventual end-of-life deconstruction, distinct from the carbon footprint that comes from day-to-day building operations. Understanding embodied carbon is critical to meet NYC’s ambitious target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 80% by 2050; this study will parlay technical findings into policy recommendations to help the city achieve its goal.
Research Objectives
The C2SMART team is developing a robust, typology-specific baseline of embodied carbon across NYC’s most common construction and retrofit activities, while providing a scalable framework for citywide implementation and policy action. C2SMART’s approach integrates advanced lifecycle assessment methodologies, circular economy (CE) principles, and direct stakeholder engagement to ensure results are actionable, equitable, and grounded in NYC-specific conditions. C2SMART will deliver the research goals through the following:
- Cohesive, Policy-Ready Data Integration: Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs), and empirical project data from NYC and comparable urban contexts will be synthesized into a unified, high-integrity dataset.
- Typology-Specific Modeling and Scalable Estimation: Embodied carbon intensities will be calculated for representative construction and retrofit typologies, disaggregated by material and lifecycle stage.
- Scenario-Based Reduction Strategies and Policy Design: The project will model the carbon, cost, and feasibility impacts of low-carbon material substitutions and design strategies.
- Stakeholder-Guided Implementation and Equity Focus: Engagement with contractors, designers, suppliers, owners, and policy actors will ground assumptions in practice, identify implementation challenges, and ensure outcomes promote equitable modernization citywide.
Related Media
Personnel
SEMIHA ERGAN
Associate Professor, NYU
Semiha Ergan is the Principal Investigator on this project.
Mohamad Awada
assistant professor, nyu
Mohamad Awada is a Co-Principal Investigator on this project.
Kaan Ozbay
DIRECTOR, C2SMART; PROFESSOR, NYU
Kaan Ozbay is a Co-Principal Investigator on this project.
Frank DarConte
Research Professor, NYU
Frank DarConte is a Co-Principal Investigator on this project.
HANI NASSIF
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, C2SMARTER PROFESSOR, RUTGERS
Hani Nassif is a Co-Principal Investigator on this project.