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Embodied Carbon Calculator for Building Materials
Add up the cradle-to-gate carbon footprint of the materials going into a build or renovation, and see which one dominates.
What embodied carbon means
Embodied carbon is the greenhouse gas emissions (expressed as kg of CO2-equivalent, or kgCO2e) released in extracting, manufacturing and transporting a building material before it's even installed — separate from the operational carbon a building emits over its lifetime through heating, cooling and electricity use.
Why materials vary so much
Concrete and steel are carbon-intensive per unit because of the high-temperature processes (cement kilns, blast furnaces) used to make them, while timber has a comparatively low manufacturing footprint. This calculator uses realistic, widely-cited average factors for each material so you can see, at a glance, which part of a materials list to target first if you want to cut a project's footprint.
Frequently asked questions
Where do the embodied-carbon factors come from?
They're realistic industry-average cradle-to-gate figures widely used in early-stage carbon estimating — roughly 300 kgCO2e per m³ of ready-mix concrete, 1.9 kgCO2e per kg of structural steel, 130 kgCO2e per m³ of sawn timber, 2.5 kgCO2e per brick, and 5 kgCO2e per m² of typical insulation. Real factors vary by supplier, product and region, so treat this as a planning estimate, not a certified figure.
Does this include the carbon timber stores while growing?
No — this shows the manufacturing (cradle-to-gate) footprint only, not the biogenic carbon temporarily stored in wood fibre. That's a separate accounting question with its own conventions, and mixing it into a single total can be misleading, so it's deliberately left out here.
Why does one material usually dominate the total?
Concrete and steel are used in far larger quantities by mass or volume than finishes like insulation, and carry a higher carbon factor per unit — so structural materials typically account for the majority of a project's embodied carbon, which is exactly what the ranking below is meant to surface.
How can I use this to lower a project's footprint?
Once you see which material category dominates, look for lower-carbon substitutes in that category first — for example, a lower-clinker concrete mix, recycled-content steel, or FSC-certified timber — since cutting the biggest contributor by even a small percentage usually beats a large cut to a minor one.