EPA Offers $160M in Grants for Clean Manufacturing of Building Materials

The US Environmental Protection Agency announced the selection of 38 grant recipients across the country, totaling nearly $160 million, to support efforts to report and reduce climate pollution from the manufacturing of construction materials and products.

EPA estimates that the construction materials used in buildings and other built infrastructure account for more than 15% of annual global greenhouse gas emissions.

The US leads the world in the production of clean construction materials, and these transformative awards from the Inflation Reduction Act will reduce climate pollution by helping businesses measure the carbon emissions associated with extracting, transporting and manufacturing their products.

The grants will support the Biden-Harris Administration’s Federal Buy Clean Initiative, which leverages the US government’s sway as the largest purchaser on Earth to catalyze demand for clean construction materials used in federal buildings, highways, and infrastructure projects.

The grants will be awarded to businesses, universities, and nonprofit organizations serving all 50 states and will help disclose the environmental impacts associated with manufacturing concrete, asphalt, glass, steel, wood and other materials.

“As America continues to build more and upgrade our nation’s infrastructure under President Biden’s leadership, cleaner construction materials like concrete and steel are increasingly essential for the nation’s prosperity,” said EPA Deputy Administrator Janet McCabe. “These historic investments will expand market access for a new generation of more climate-friendly construction materials, and further grow American jobs that are paving the way to the clean energy economy.”

Ranging from $250,000 to $10 million, the grants will help businesses develop robust, high-quality environmental product declarations (EPDs), which show environmental impacts across the life of a product and can catalyze more sustainable purchasing decisions by allowing buyers to compare products. Investments in data and tools will make high-quality EPDs available for 14 material categories, which include both new and salvaged or reused materials.

These efforts will help standardize and expand the market for construction products with lower greenhouse gas emissions. They will make it easier for federal, state and local governments and other institutional buyers to ensure the construction projects they fund use more climate-friendly products and materials.

The grant selections include a diverse range of projects to help measure and ultimately reduce greenhouse gases. For example:

EPA is also expanding technical assistance opportunities to businesses, the federal government, and other organizations across the US. EPA will initially offer EPD development support and direct businesses to resources to help them measure and reduce the embodied carbon associated with their materials, such as those provided by the ENERGY STAR Industrial program. Federal agencies and their suppliers will be able to compare the climate impact of various materials to drive near-term greenhouse gas emissions reductions. Robust EPD data will be further strengthened by a new label program under development that will identify low carbon construction materials for the growing Buy Clean marketplace.