Developing a Benchmarking Methodology for Concrete Global Warming Potentials in North America

The objective of this paper is to develop a methodology for estimating the statistical distributions associated with cradle-to-gate (A1–A3) concrete global warming potentials (GWPs) within the United States. When applied, this methodology serves as a framework for identifying benchmarks for product-level GWP. Cement production contributes to approximately 90% of the GWP for concrete mixtures. In this study, publicly available environmental product declarations for Type I/II, Type IL, and Type III cements were collected and the best fitting distributions for the cement GWPs were established and used in Monte Carlo simulations for analyzing the impact of cement on concrete GWP benchmarks. The distribution parameters for GWPs of concretes incorporating each of the three cement types were calculated and applied to determine 20th percentile, 40th percentile, and average GWP reference values. Additionally, the concrete GWP results were compared to the national industry-average GWP for the same concrete class. While this paper focuses on exploring the statistical distributions to develop a benchmarking methodology for concrete A1–A3 GWPs, this methodology can be expanded to explore the distributions of other products, product classes, life cycle inventory modules, and environmental impact indicators.