Amazon is leveraging the EC3 tool to scale building decarbonization—and you should too

The open-source tool helps professionals compare building material carbon footprint data as part of the decision-making process for specification and procurement on construction projects.

Embodied carbon—the global warming potential associated with manufacturing, transporting, installing, maintaining, and disposing of building materials—is often a hidden environmental impact in construction even though, according to the United Nations, it accounts for approximately 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions. But the industry is mobilizing to curb those emissions, embracing a more sophisticated approach to how builders procure, use, and manage resources. Among the tools that can support better design and construction is the Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator (EC3). 

EC3 is an open-access tool for measuring and reducing embodied carbon in construction that works with other widely used industry software products. The tool leverages over 150,000 Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), which are like nutrition labels for products, to help users reduce carbon emissions from design to construction by providing better data and access to building materials and suppliers. Everyone should be able to access this information, and with EC3 they can; it’s one of the reasons Amazon uses this tool.

EC3's user base includes over 50,000 people responsible for more than 12,500 building projects across 78 countries. The tool calculates the carbon footprint of projects by, for example, collecting building material quantities installed during construction and multiplying those quantities by the global warming potential in the product. This approach results in leveraging current and credible data that continues to improve as EPDs are updated. It also means manufacturers are rewarded by working to acquire more supply chain-specific, primary data instead of older or average data for different inputs to publish an EPD. This process enables lower-carbon material selection, and uses an extensive database to calculate specific, location-based carbon benchmarks for individual building materials and products. All of these features mean that companies like Amazon get better insight into their lower-carbon building material and equipment investments—while showing lower-carbon choices matter more than business-as-usual manufacturing.

Amazon and Amazon’s contractors use EC3 to track the Scope 3 embodied carbon emissions of its buildings, with over 700 active users across more than 100 companies. EC3 is codified in our contract documents for multiple building types, and our building teams have used it since 2021. Using EC3 on Amazon's building projects allows us to track key trends and answer complex questions about how to decarbonize structures under local constraints. We can examine geographic trends in lower-carbon material availability, and understand how our building-material and equipment footprints change over time.

Amazon’s decarbonization experts love this tool for myriad other reasons, such as automatic data ingestion and updated standardized comparisons across different life cycle assessment frameworks. Building construction requires many inputs and materials; it’s helpful to be able to quickly, easily, and affordably find credible lower-carbon options—and it’s critical to scaling decarbonization in this sector. Our building project teams can compare material choices with underlying targets that allow us to see what’s good, better, and best in the current market. Each team can use this same platform to report its project's emissions, making our use of this Scope 3 building footprint data easier, faster, and more automated across our large portfolio.

EC3 sets a new bar for measuring embodied carbon and reducing its emissions during building construction. As new, more sustainable policies, building performance standards, and regulations emerge, EC3 will be a useful tool to support compliance reporting work. Third-party building rating systems also rely on EC3 to validate building performance claims, and other corporations and global contractors have integrated it into their building processes. Access free EC3 trainings, tutorials, and guides—and dig into the methodology behind the tool—here.

Browse more building decarbonization tools on the Amazon Sustainability Exchange.