Environmental Regulations & Laws Decoded

Plenty of manufacturers still ask, “Do we have to publish an EPD?” The short answer: sometimes. The...

When LEED v4 landed, EPDs felt like extra credit. With v5, they are a front-row requirement. Every...

CE marking alone no longer cuts it. The recast EU Construction Products Regulation (effective 7...

A quiet deadline is racing toward every factory gate in Europe. The Ecodesign for Sustainable...

California’s July 2024 CALGreen supplement quietly flipped the script on embodied carbon. Large...

AI, BIM, EPDs—you finally felt caught up, then Brussels dropped the Digital Product Passport....

California just put a price signal on the carbon inside building materials. AB 43 authorizes an...

Article 37 just made Boston the toughest proving ground for new buildings. If your products feed...

France just ratcheted down the carbon caps for new buildings. If your product’s footprint is...

Across the US and Europe, public buyers have put Environmental Product Declarations on the...

The EU just gave every product a sustainability scorecard. Miss the requirements and your next...

Architects ask for LEED points on nearly every mid-to-large project. If your materials cannot help...

LEED v5 flips the script: before a project can claim even its first point, the team must tally the...

Public buyers are tightening the screws: no verified Environmental Product Declaration, no seat at...

Corporate climate reporting is about to rub shoulders with product-level documentation....

California tightened the screws on state purchasing. If your product supplies steel, rebar, flat...

Dutch procurement officers no longer skim over green claims, they measure them in euros. A single...

Getting your product specified on BREEAM-certified projects can open doors to high-value...

Caltrans has shifted EPDs from buzzword to bid requirement. Starting with steel and flat glass and...

Embodied-carbon caps are tightening across the UK. The pilot UK Net Zero Carbon Building Standard,...

Border taxes on carbon are no longer a Brussels thought experiment. The EU’s Carbon Border...

California is tightening the screws on embodied-carbon. From 1 January 2025, structural steel,...

Pouring concrete in Berkeley now comes with a simple, high‑impact rule: cut cement in every mix by...

Corporate fit-out giants eyeing the Square Mile have a new rulebook: reuse before rebuild. The City...

On July 10 2025, Austin becomes the first major U.S. city to fold Appendix BL of the 2024...

If your products touch concrete in California, Santa Monica just turned up the heat. The city now...

Colorado now sets hard global warming potential limits for key materials on state-funded projects....

If your products land in Massachusetts state-aided housing, life-cycle assessments are moving from...

Massachusetts just tightened its Stretch and Specialized Energy Codes again. New electrification...

The Concrete Carbon Utilization, Reduction, and Removal Breakthrough Act (HB 5461) almost turned...

Architects across Europe are starting to ask suppliers for numbers that plug straight into the EU’s...

Trying to sell concrete, steel, or asphalt into Port Authority projects without an Environmental...

Washington’s new operating budget quietly earmarks cash to turn the state’s “Buy Clean & Buy Fair”...

Europe’s Construction Products Regulation just hit refresh. As of 7 January 2025, every CE-marked...

New York City’s new Clean and Circular Design & Construction Guidelines turn circularity from a...

Pennsylvania’s House Resolution 83 tells the Joint State Government Commission to figure out...

A pair of twin bills—A8456 in the Assembly and S7998 in the Senate—would bake a 15 percent...

New Jersey just opened a $500 million pot of tax credits for manufacturers who invest at least $10...

A one-page bill could tip Nebraska’s climate strategy from passive to proactive by standing up an...

On April 9 2024 the LA City Council instructed building-safety officials to write embodied-carbon...

EPDs are edging from nice-to-have to ticket-to-play. Texas lawmakers just poured fresh concrete on...

California’s Climate‑Related Financial Risk Act (SB 261) is paused by a court order, yet it is...

Olympia just green-lit $7.6 billion in bricks, wires, and rebar for the 2025-27 biennium (HB...

Ready-mix, precast, or masonry—if your plant ships 50 cubic yards of concrete to a state-funded...

Contractors on Washington state projects are beginning to ask for EPDs, HPDs, and facility details...

Oregon’s 2023 climate package is not just about forests and heat pumps. It quietly rewires...

Developers in Emeryville can trade verifiable community benefits for extra height, FAR, and...

Minnesota is weighing whether to fold Appendix BL (hemp-lime “hempcrete”) and Appendix BJ...

Massachusetts is poised to make every cubic yard of concrete, ton of rebar, and square-foot of...

Bidding on a French building project without an FDES feels like showing up at Cannes without a...

Two freshly filed code proposals—RE196-24 and RE137-24—aim to drag embodied carbon from the...

Los Angeles just strapped a booster pack onto California’s already-tough CALGreen code. Starting...

A new Washington bill puts facility-specific EPDs on the critical path for any project over roughly...

Minnesota already shells out more than $2 billion a year on goods and services for public projects...

Congress just set aside $200 million for low-carbon cement and asphalt R&D plus new cash bonuses on...

Eight and a half percent. That is the average sales-tax bite on every cubic yard of concrete,...

Sales‐tax exemption on concrete, steel, asphalt, and other materials in New York will soon hinge on...

Nebraska lawmakers are weighing L.B.164, a bill that would pour up to $46.5 million a year into...

The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive keeps shapeshifting: first the 2022 headlines,...

Tender documents across the UK now slip a quiet question into the technical specs: “Show evidence...

State "Buy Clean" laws are moving from feel-good slogans to hard carbon caps. Miss the limit and...

AI training campuses are rising faster than substation upgrades. Owners are racing to cut both...

Beacon Hill is weighing HD.3507, a bill that would turn embodied-carbon data into a ticket of entry...

If your concrete, asphalt, steel, or even refrigerator ends up on Illinois-funded jobs, Senate Bill...

Most manufacturers breathed a sigh of relief when Buy Clean only covered four materials. SB 755...

Voluntary checklists once passed in bid rooms. Not anymore. Owners, states, and rating systems now...

Virginia lawmakers flirted with a 20 percent income-tax credit for buying asphalt-recycling...

The Concrete and Asphalt Innovation Act now moving through Congress could reshape how every U.S....

Land a cloud contract and you also inherit a sustainability homework list any building-product...

A bill now moving through Albany would turn New York’s current “please disclose” embodied-carbon...

New Hampshire’s H.B.306 never made it off the House table this February, but it spotlights a...

Emeryville, California hands developers up to 50 hard-won points—and extra height and floor...

A 20 percent tax credit on asphalt-recycling machinery sounds nice. Match it with a carbon-smart...

State DOTs finally have a federal playbook for low-carbon roadways. The FHWA Sustainable Pavements...

Hidden in Washington’s new two-year operating budget is a tidy $1.112 million line item to stand up...

Washington legislators have packed a lot into HB 1458: mandatory product-specific EPDs in the 2024...

Pennsylvania’s House Bill 505 would pump hundreds of millions of new utility dollars into...

Minnesota’s latest transportation finance bill quietly sets aside $310,000 to help concrete,...

Connecticut lawmakers have floated HB 6784, a bill that would dangle new incentives in front of...

Ann Arbor, Michigan quietly passed a 2021 resolution that tells its architects, engineers and...

Colorado recycles just 16 percent of its waste—half the national average (Eco-Cycle, 2023)....

Dallas voters green-lit a $1.25 billion bond package that now comes with a sharp new string...

Starting March 1 2025, every site-plan application in Mississauga must tick off a revamped Green...

A quick heads-up for any manufacturer shipping into the Empire State: New York’s fresh S6931A bill...

Sydney’s cranes are not just lifting steel beams, they are lifting a new carbon rulebook. From...

Michigan’s House Bill 5567 looks small on paper—a two-page amendment that simply orders a study—but...

Connecticut is flirting with a procurement rule that would give state-funded buildings a clear...

Federal bids move at sprint speed. GSA can award a construction contract in as little as 60 days,...

A one-page bill rarely rattles product teams, but Illinois House Bill 3141 does just that. Starting...

Massachusetts wants to pour $300 million into making old buildings all-electric, energy-tight, and...

Construction and demolition debris already dwarfs household trash, clocking in at 600 million tons...

Hawaii just told its Department of Health to assemble a Demolition Waste Reduction Working Group....

Aloha State lawmakers want to know if public projects can swap out high-carbon concrete, steel, and...

Colorado just rewired its popular C-PACE financing to reward low-carbon construction materials. SB...

Carbon rules are changing faster than a TikTok trend. Federal pullbacks in Washington sit beside...

On December 16, 2025, the European Commission adopted a delegated act that standardises how to...

The EU just locked in the first Construction Products Regulation Working Plan. It spells out which...

France’s RE2020 hits its 2025 step while the government rolls out a new digital attestations...

Andover, Massachusetts just turned its climate roadmap into near‑term building action by adopting...

Here’s the simple truth. LEED certifies buildings, not products. Yet products can help projects...

Making sense of BREEAM’s Materials category is the difference between being shortlisted and being...

If project teams keep asking how your products help their LEED score, this is your crib sheet. We...

Owners keep asking for buildings that use no net energy over a year. Design teams then turn to...

Owners keep asking for “zero carbon.” Some mean LEED Zero Carbon, others mean a LEED v5 project...

France tightened RE2020 carbon caps in 2025. If your product data is not in INIES, project teams...

France’s RE2020 sets hard caps on the carbon of new buildings and tightens those caps in steps. If...

If France is on your roadmap, RE2020 is the rulebook that decides whether your products help a...

France tightened RE2020 carbon rules on January 1, 2025. If your products go into French housing,...

France’s RE2020 sets hard carbon and energy caps for new buildings. The 2025 step tightened the...

Public buyers in the EU spend close to €2 trillion each year, roughly 13.6–15% of GDP, and many of...

If Europe is one giant jobsite, the Digital Product Passport is the site log that follows every...

The EU’s Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation is live and the real action now shifts to...

If you make or sell physical products in the EU, the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation...

If you sell construction products in the EU or Great Britain, 2025 is a threshold year. New CPR...

If Europe is on your sales map, the Construction Products Regulation shapes how your products...

If Europe is on your roadmap, the new Construction Products Regulation sets fresh rules for CE...

Selling into San Francisco without understanding its construction and demolition debris rules is...

California’s embodied‑carbon law is moving from concept to compliance. If your products touch...

IECC 2027 is locking in by late 2026, then rolling into state adoptions on their own timelines....

Net-zero is no longer a buzzword, it is a score on the LEED chart that architects track as closely...