Unlocking supply chain decarbonization: Tackling the biggest carbon challenge in the built environment

Key learnings from sustainable construction and manufacturing industry experts

As the climate crisis deepens and regulatory expectations tighten, the decarbonization of construction supply chains has moved from a peripheral issue to a critical business imperative. Nowhere is this more evident than in the shifting focus from operational to embodied carbon — emissions associated with the extraction, manufacturing, and delivery of building materials, products, and services.

Understanding supply chain decarbonization in construction

In simple terms, supply chain decarbonization refers to the identification, measurement, and reduction of Scope 3 emissions — those emissions that occur outside a company's direct operations but within its value chain. These include the embodied carbon of building materials, transport emissions, and the environmental impact of subcontracted services. In the construction industry, Scope 3 emissions typically account for the overwhelming majority of total life-cycle emissions, often exceeding 80%.

“In 1990, 23% of emissions within the built environment sat within embodied carbon in the supply chain — around 70 megatons of CO₂ equivalent. By 2022, that figure had risen to 37% of the total, and we’d only reduced those emissions by about 10% — actually, slightly less than 10% — since 1990. So as we’ve worked to reduce other emissions, embodied carbon has become a growing share of the problem.” 

- Simon Matthews, Advisor, UKGBC’s Advancing Net Zero Program

This stagnation underscores the urgent need for systemic supply chain engagement, underpinned by rigorous data and collaborative procurement strategies. The suggestion is that without confronting these emissions head-on, the likelihood of meeting the UK's 2050 net-zero target — or even intermediate carbon budgets — will falter.

Embodied carbon: The next lynchpin of climate action

The historical focus on operational energy efficiency — from Part L compliance to EPC ratings — has driven real gains in reducing building energy use. However, as grid decarbonization accelerates, operational carbon is set to fall further, elevating the relative importance of embodied emissions.

This shift means that construction professionals must now consider tasks and challenges traditionally outside their remit: Where do products come from? What is the carbon intensity of their manufacture? Can we specify alternatives with lower emissions and comparable performance?

“Our responsibility as an HVAC manufacturer is making sure that the data we have is used internally to continuously make our products better. Because at the end of the day, we represent a good part of Scope 3 emissions for our partners — the people who use our products. So by improving the way we manufacture and lowering embodied carbon over time, we can then pass those carbon savings along the chain.”

- Matteo Dall’Ombra, National Specification Manager at Daikin UK

Redefining accountability across the supply chain

If supply chain emissions are everyone’s problem, then accountability must also be shared. Yet this shared responsibility can translate into diluted responsibility without clear roles. One regulation which considers the importance of clear ownership is PAS 2080.

The PAS 2080 standard — focused on carbon management in infrastructure — offers a structured approach by defining accountabilities for asset owners, designers, contractors, and product suppliers. It also encourages systems thinking, recognizing the interdependencies between design decisions, material choices, and long-term asset performance.

For example, a specifier’s material selection influences not only upfront embodied carbon but also long-term maintenance, replacement cycles, and end-of-life emissions. A lack of alignment between manufacturers, specifiers, and developers can result in missed opportunities, misreporting, or duplicative work.

Teams must speak a common “carbon language” to collaborate effectively. Consistent tools, shared assumptions, and standardized data formats can enable traceable, auditable carbon models at scale.

Environmental product declarations: From niche to necessity

Environmental product declarations (EPDs) have become a cornerstone of carbon transparency in construction. Compliant with ISO 14025 and EN 15804, EPDs provide third-party verified data on a product’s life-cycle environmental impacts — including global warming potential, resource depletion, acidification, and more.

At Daikin, a leading HCAV manufacturer with operations across the globe, EPDs are rapidly becoming a default deliverable — published alongside manuals and spec sheets. 

“We started with just a few products, but today it’s an ingrained part of our R&D and product release cycle.” 

- Matteo Dall’Ombra, National Specification Manager at Daikin UK

The value of EPDs, however, extends beyond disclosure. They allow manufacturers to pinpoint carbon hotspots within their supply chain — such as Daikin’s discovery that the single smallest component within one of their products, though small, were disproportionately carbon-intensive due to their use of rare metals.

EPDs also empower designers to make like-for-like comparisons between products based on functional units (e.g., CO₂e per kW capacity), enabling carbon-informed procurement. This is increasingly essential in jurisdictions like France (RE2020), Denmark, and the Netherlands, where embodied carbon thresholds are being legislated — and likely indicate similar policy moves in the UK.

Overcoming barriers to widespread adoption

Despite their wide-spread and critical benefits, EPDs are still unevenly distributed across the product landscape, and challenges remain in readability, comparability, and completeness.

One Click LCA’s 2025 Carbon Experts Report highlights several potential reasons:

• Availability: Many key product categories still lack EPDs, forcing specifiers to rely on generic or default values.
  
  
• Usability: Non-experts often struggle to interpret EPDs, especially when comparing across manufacturers or products with varying assumptions.
  
  
• Standardisation: Without harmonized methodologies, cross-border comparisons can be unreliable.
  
  

One Click LCA plays a pivotal role in helping manufacturers streamline and scale the creation of high-quality environmental product declarations (EPDs). The platform offers an end-to-end solution that simplifies the complex and often resource-intensive process of data collection, life-cycle assessment, and documentation. With access to over 300,000 verified data points and compatibility with more than 20 design and BIM tools, manufacturers can import product information directly from existing systems, minimizing duplication and errors. 

The EPD Generator tool supports both pre-verified and fully compliant EPD development under EN 15804 and ISO 14025, guiding users through each life-cycle stage — from raw material sourcing (A1-A3) to end-of-life scenarios (C1-C4). Automated plausibility checks and a built-in quality checker ensure that results meet the strict requirements of third-party verification bodies. The result is a faster, more reliable EPD workflow that reduces cost, improves accuracy, and enhances trust with clients and regulators. 

For manufacturers operating in multiple regions, One Click LCA also enables the export of EPDs in various languages and regulatory formats, helping businesses stay ahead of evolving policy landscapes while showcasing sustainability leadership.

Strategies for accelerating supplier engagement

Data alone cannot drive decarbonization. It must be coupled with proactive supplier engagement strategies that empower upstream players to reduce their carbon intensity.

UKGBC’s current initiative on supply chain decarbonization emphasizes mentorship: encouraging larger organizations to share best practices, provide tools, and co-develop carbon improvement roadmaps with SMEs. 

Daikin’s strategy centers on data democratization. 

“We want our carbon data to be plug-and-play. No gatekeeping. No long email chains. Just public, self-serve documents on our website.”

- Matteo Dall’Ombra, National Specification Manager at Daikin UK

Cultural change: The ultimate decarbonization challenge

While technical and financial barriers are real, cultural inertia remains the biggest obstacle to rapid progress. 

“I think it’s cultural. We still work in a capitalist, monetized society where our focus is — still and has long been — on price and delivery. And we really need to try and widen the scope. Those are still very important to the way we operate, but we need to include our care for the planet in the way we approach that.”

- Simon Matthews, Advisor, UKGBC’s Advancing Net Zero Program

“The final challenge is communication. We have these documents, we have EPDs, we have this information, but I think it’s still too technical. We need to find a way, as an industry, to simplify the message. And it would be good to see more standardisation, so that we always ask the same question, so that we can always provide the same answer, and so we can speed up those processes.”

- Matteo Dall’Ombra, National Specification Manager at Daikin UK

Looking ahead: A carbon-literate construction industry

The direction of travel is clear: carbon data is becoming non-negotiable in permitting, procurement, and reputation management. From the EU Construction Products Regulation to UK local authority requirements, embodied carbon reporting is shifting from voluntary to mandatory.

For organizations looking to future-proof their operations, three imperatives are emerging:

1. Invest in data infrastructure: Adopt interoperable platforms that allow seamless exchange of carbon data across design, procurement, and reporting functions.
   
   
2. Standardize your approach: Align internal EPD formats, assumptions, and methodologies with industry norms to facilitate external engagement.
   
   
3. Build internal capability: Train project managers, engineers, and procurement teams to understand, request, and act on embodied carbon data.
   
   

“Sooner rather than later, EPDs will become a true differentiator — even from a commercial point of view. It enables us as manufacturers to say ‘I’ve got my products, I’ve got my EPDs, I can win against someone that can’t provide this same data.’”

- Matteo Dall’Ombra, National Specification Manager at Daikin UK

How can One Click LCA help?

One Click LCA is the leading life-cycle assessment software purpose-built to support the decarbonization of the construction supply chain. By enabling both manufacturers and construction professionals to quantify the embodied and whole life carbon of products, buildings, and infrastructure, One Click LCA helps turn data into actionable insights. The platform streamlines the creation of environmental product declarations (EPDs), supports early-stage design optimization with integrated LCA tools, and ensures compliance with global and regional carbon regulations. With extensive databases, automated workflows, and compatibility with major BIM and design platforms, One Click LCA empowers users to make informed, low-carbon decisions—accelerating progress toward net-zero targets across the built environment.