EPA program could boost recycled-content materials

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced the availability of $100 million in grants designed to support makers of construction materials and products who can demonstrate they offer lower carbon footprint options.

The EPA includes businesses that manufacture, remanufacture and refurbish construction materials as eligible to apply for grant money. Manufacturers of recycled-content steel and other building materials have increasingly begun to track and publicize their reduced carbon emissions.

The agency says building materials account for 11 percent of annual global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It says its new Reducing Embodied Greenhouse Gas Emissions for Construction Materials program will help manufacturers disclose environmental impacts across the life of a product and inform institutional purchasers who are prioritizing lower embodied carbon construction materials.

“In order to reduce GHG emissions in construction materials and products, we must be able track and understand where they are,” says Michal Freedhoff, EPA assistant administrator. “These new grants through President Biden’s Investing in America agenda will help ensure manufacturers have access to the assistance they need to disclose and reduce emissions.”

“Today’s funding announcement from EPA is like the falling of small stones that starts an avalanche of industrial sector emissions reductions in the U.S.,” Sen. Chuck Schumer says. “By shining a light on leading low- and no-carbon products, providing direct incentives to deeply decarbonize industrial facilities, and creating a market for these products, the Inflation Reduction Act is driving down emissions in one of the hardest to abate sectors while supporting U.S. jobs and industry.”

“As we work to rebuild our nation’s infrastructure, we should be using materials and products produced in the most sustainable way possible, which more often than not are American-made,” Sen. Tom Carper adds.

Funding amounts for individual grants and cooperative agreements are anticipated to be in a range starting at $250,000 all the way up to $10 million.

The Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) generated through the grant program will make it easier for state and local governments—and other institutional buyers—to ensure the construction projects they fund are using low carbon construction materials, according to the EPA.

“Billions of tons of concrete, asphalt, steel, glass and other construction materials and products are required to build, maintain and operate our country’s buildings and infrastructure,” states the EPA. “These new grants will [advancie] America’s industrial capacity to supply the goods and materials of the future and growing good jobs for American workers,” adds the agency.

The EPA is seeking a Notice of Intent to apply by Oct. 27 from interested firms who can email embodiedcarbon@epa.gov.