Embodied Carbon in Building Materials: Key Research Trends, Patterns, and Gaps

Building materials account for a significant percentage of embodied carbon (EC) across construction life cycles, making the industry a significant contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions. Studies on EC and decarbonization continue to be dispersed among disciplines, techniques, and regional settings despite increased academic interest, which limits their policy and practical usefulness, especially in developing countries. Using Scopus peer-reviewed publications from 2011 to 2025, this study provides a bibliometric analysis of EC and decarbonization in building materials using 285 studies to identify publication trends, subject areas, and top journals while keyword co-occurrence networks generated using VOSviewer software version 1.6.20 identified theme advancement and thematic evolution following PRISMA procedures. The qualitative synthesis of the assessing methodological landscape of embodied carbon analysis was conducted on nine (9) evaluated studies. Results show a sharp increase in publications after 2016, with engineering, environmental science, and energy disciplines dominating. While the growing fields include circular economy practices and data-driven decision-making, life cycle assessment, EC quantification, and decarbonization procedures are important topics. However, there are significant inconsistencies in methods and a lack of optimization-focused studies and investigations from developing countries and regions, signifying important gaps in low-carbon construction practices. Key research gaps were identified, and recommendations were provided to enhance the adoption of low-carbon materials and integrate standard carbon assessment.