As the global population grows and standards of living improve, material consumption increases at a staggering rate across the world. If present trends in production and consumption continue, it is estimated that it will take three planets’ worth of resources to sustain current lifestyles, if the world population reaches 9.6 billion by 2050. Therefore, SDG 12 sets targets to encourage lowering the life cycle impact of the goods and services we use.At USGBC, we support the goals in SDG 12 by promoting the responsible production and consumption of materials. The LEED rating system drives the adoption of sustainable practices throughout the life cycle of a building, from construction to operations to renovation or demolition.

However, if we only focused on sustainability in construction and operations, a huge piece of the carbon puzzle would be left out: the embodied carbon associated with the production and transportation of the materials used to build the building. Even if a building is 30% more energy-efficient than the average, operationally, it can still take somewhere between 10 and 80 years for that energy efficiency to offset the emissions generated by the embodied carbon in the building.

With the percentage of the world’s population living in urban areas projected to swell from 55% to 68% by 2050, it is important that the new buildings built in this urban expansion be built with a focus on reducing embodied carbon. LEED v4.1, the newest version of the rating system, includes an updated Materials and Resources category, with a renewed focus on life cycle assessment.

Examples of other rating systems that support SDG 12 include GBCI’s TRUE (Total Resource Use and Efficiency) system, which defines leadership in responsible consumption and disposal of materials, and the Sustainable SITES rating system, which promotes the sustainable development of land.