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Dive brief:
- The EPA announced on August 7 its plan to implement a new label program to help shoppers identify more climate-friendly building materials for federal building, highway and infrastructure projects, according to an agency news release.
- The tag program will define what constitutes “clean” building materials. in support of the Biden administration’s Buy Clean Initiative, a procurement policy that aims to leverage the federal government’s enormous purchasing power to grow the market for low-carbon, American-made building materials.
- According to the EPA, the production of construction materials accounts for more than 15% of annual greenhouse gas emissions, which drive climate change.
Diving knowledge:
EPA’s label program will prioritize steel, glass, asphalt, and concrete: There are significant opportunities to reduce climate pollution from these materials, and they represent the vast majority of construction products purchased with federal funds , according to the statement.
Buy Clean takes into account the life cycle emissions associated with the production of building materials and the program will offer a tiered classification system. Materials that earn the label will be included in a central, publicly accessible registry, making it easier to identify and purchase, according to the release. EPA developed the program with input from a number of federal agencies, including the Department of Transportation.
“Using lower-carbon materials, which have the durability of conventional materials while reducing greenhouse gas emissions, is one of the ways FHWA is pursuing to help us meet President Biden’s goal of net zero emissions by 2050,” Federal Highway Administration Associate Administrator for Infrastructure Hari Kalla said at the launch.
The agency anticipates that labeling requirements for each type of product will be periodically reviewed and updated every two to four years to respond to and drive market changes and help users meet sustainability goals, the statement said.
The EPA also issued several supporting documents to help implement the programincluding the product category rule criteria, which are guidelines for developing environmental product statements to communicate the environmental impacts of products. Other documents released Aug. 7 describe remaining key data gaps, provide a methodology for assessing lifecycle data quality, and describe other federal data quality improvement activities.
The tag program is funded by $100 million from the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act. Buy Clean comes from Biden’s December 2021 Executive Order, directing the federal government to green its procurement practices and take other actions to achieve a net-zero emissions economy by 2050.
