Reducing embodied carbon with material optimization in structural engineering practice: Perceived barriers and opportunities

Structural engineers play an essential role in reducing embodied carbon emissions in buildings, which contribute significantly to global carbon emissions. In this work, 39 structural engineers primarily from the Northeastern US are surveyed on how embodied carbon is reduced in practice, particularly through computational tools that facilitate material efficiency (e.g. parametric design models and structural optimization tools). Leading barriers to embodied carbon reductions are identified as: (i) lack of awareness of how to quantify embodied carbon or reduce it, (ii) perception of increased costs, and (iii) lack of power in relation to other project stakeholders. The use of computational tools is found to be primarily inhibited by increased design time and costs. These results highlight opportunities to overcome these barriers, such as increasing awareness of strategies to reduce embodied carbon and targeting time and cost (or perceived time and cost) in computational design workflows for structural engineers.