Carbon Crackdown.

The embodied-carbon accounting that design and construction firms perform is generally much simpler and is often aided by one or more of a growing body of digital estimating tools. The Seattle-based architecture firm LMN wanted to get a better handle on the cumulative effects of such projects, which are about 10 percent of their work, so they analyzed renovations to their own office building - a 17-story International Style tower designed by SOM in the late 1950s. Juan Gonzalez, sustainability manager for operations at San Jose-based Central Concrete, says his firm routinely uses CarbonCure's process with concrete mixes that have high ash and slag content. The firm's first commercial plant, in construction east of San Francisco, will produce enough aggregate to sequester up to 1 million tons of CO2 a year. [Extracted from the article]