ALBANY—The New York State Department of Transportation has received a $32-million grant to advance the use of low carbon materials in construction projects

The funding from the Federal Highway Administration will help further NYSDOT’s ongoing efforts to identify and use construction materials that have lower levels of embodied carbon, thereby reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The money was provided via the Low-Carbon Transportation Materials Grants program, which was established under the Inflation Reduction Act and provides funding for the use of construction materials that result in substantially lower levels of greenhouse gas emissions.

Embodied carbon refers to the estimate of the greenhouse gas emissions that are produced during the stages of a building or infrastructure’s life cycle. Embodied carbon accounts for about one-third of the carbon emissions from the construction industry.  Selecting and procuring lower embodied carbon materials requires transparency around the embodied carbon associated with a given material or product, to allow for comparisons, state officials said.

The funding will allow NYSDOT’s Low Carbon Transportation Materials program to continue to work to identify low carbon materials, adopt lower carbon specifications for large volume materials for state projects and develop standards for reducing the environmental impact from construction materials. Specifically, the funding will help NYSDOT:

• Develop and implement outreach and training for agency staff and industry stakeholders.
• Evaluate low carbon materials to ensure they meet technical and performance requirements.
• Develop or update technical specifications to allow for use of materials, products and strategies that result in lower embodied carbon materials.
• Establish a process to identify, verify and use materials with lower levels of embodied greenhouse gas emissions.