Originally published on April 10, 2024, by Bendix Anderson for UrbanLand Magazine.

Real estate developers across the United States and around the world are under pressure to cut the amount of carbon their activities put into the atmosphere.

Multiple municipalities and potential investment partners demand that developers report—and, in many instances, also reduce—the amount of embodied carbon released in the process of developing a real estate project.

“Tackling embodied carbon is not easy,” said Sara Neff, head of sustainability for Lendlease Americas. Neff spoke at “From Finger-Pointing to Handshakes: Reducing Embodied Carbon in Real Estate Developments,” at a breakout session during the 2024 ULI Spring Meeting in New York City. Early plans for a building are often based on several unexamined assumptions. After the fact, it can be difficult to say exactly who decided that a planned building should be made of this kind of steel or that type of concrete. But decisions of this sort often have a giant effect.