About CarbonStar®

CarbonStar® Mission Statement

Carbonstar® is the only American National Standards Institute-compliant concrete decarbonization standard, providing a simple, rigorous way to quantify, specify, and compare the carbon intensity of concrete. As the success of Energy Star demonstrates, a simple technical standard focused on a single performance metric can accelerate the decarbonization of the built environment. After five years of joint US-Canadian development, CarbonStar® is available as a binational standard and allows both buyers and sellers of concrete to confidently determine and specify lower and even carbon-negative concrete. CarbonStar® serves both as a standalone standard and as part of simplifying EPDs.

Many urban surfaces, including roads and sidewalks, are made of concrete. Concrete represents 8% of global annual carbon emissions. With emerging technologies, however, concrete could become one of the greatest examples of global carbon sequestration. CarbonStar® is already a key decarbonization tool for the San Francisco International Airport (SFO). CarbonStar® also enables a new decarbonization strategy for the ten metro areas and 500 towns and cities that the Smart Surfaces Coalition is working with–enabling them to become more resilient and reduce their carbon footprint. (The Smart Surfaces Coalition’s CEO, Greg Kats, served as the Committee Chair developing CarbonStar®.)

The CarbonStar® Concrete Carbon Intensity Quantification and Verification was developed jointly by the CSA Group (formerly the Canadian Standards Association), the American National Standards Institute, and a committee of leading industry, academic, and government experts from the US and Canada.

CarbonStar® Product Profile

Below

A special thanks to the Technical Committee on Concrete Carbon Intensity Quantification and Verification for helping develop CarbonStar®

The technical committee, representing industry, leading academic institutions, government, NGOs, and technical bodies met regularly over several years to develop CarbonStar®.

Greg Kats, Smart Surfaces Coalition (Chair)

Adam Auer, Cement Association of Canada

Anthony Bernheim, San Francisco International Airport

Dan Burgoyne, Department of General Services

Rob Cumming, Lafarge Canada Inc.

Matt Dalkie, Lafarge Canada Inc.

Jeremy Gregory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Geoffrey Guest, National Research Council

Mohamad El Hajj Younes, Blue Planet Systems Corporation

Chris Hall, Brookfield Properties Development

Douglas Hooton, University of Toronto

Bart Kanters, Concrete Ontario

Shervan Khanna, Master Builders Solutions Canada Inc.

Bill Lambros, Lafarge Canada Inc.

Victor Li, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Scott Lindsay, CSA Group (Previous Project Manager)

Jon Makar, National Research Council

Jamie Miel, Athena Sustainable Materials Institute

Melanie Mitchell, Environment and Climate Change Canada

Sean Monkman, CarbonCure Technologies

Victor Olgyay, Rocky Mountain Institute

John Pontarollo, CRH Canada

Fred Post, Algoma University

Sarah Saltzer, Stanford University

Paul Steenhof, CSA Group (Project Manager)

Walter Tersch, GSA Public Buildings Service

Melissa Wackerle, American Institute of Architects