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By 2028, full life-cycle carbon accounting will increasingly become mandatory across Europe for large new buildings under the revised Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD). But the real shift could go far beyond the calculation itself.
As embodied carbon reporting becomes more standardized, regulated, and visible across projects, architecture firms and project stakeholders could face growing pressure around not only sustainability targets, but also decision-making, workflows, accountability, and competitiveness.
The question will no longer be simply, “Did the project reduce emissions?” Increasingly, it could become, “Can the team clearly explain, document, and justify the material choices behind those results?” It could increasingly become a factor in selecting one team over another: “Who delivers these results faster, better, and with less risk?”
Once carbon performance is officially measured, material selection ceases to be a behind-the-scenes technical detail. It begins to influence how a project—and the team behind it—is designed, approved, coordinated, compared, and perceived.
Why should we start being aware of these risks now?
As embodied carbon requirements become more stringent, material decisions could carry increasingly significant technical, coordination, and accountability implications throughout a project.
Material substitutions and specification adjustments often occur relatively late in the process, usually due to technical, procurement, or coordination issues. As carbon requirements tighten, even small changes could affect projected carbon performance, requiring new assessments, design revisions, or more complex coordination among clients, consultants, suppliers, and project teams. What was once handled internally within the project team could become more visible, affecting not only project delivery, but also client trust, professional accountability, and competitiveness.
Transparency, therefore, may become one of the most significant shifts introduced by embodied carbon regulation.
The question may no longer be simply whether teams perform carbon calculations, but whether they can clearly demonstrate why specific building materials were selected, what data informed those decisions, and how changes were coordinated throughout the process.
The absence of an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD), outdated specifications, or disconnected material data could create operational, coordination, and potentially reputational risks — particularly in projects involving multiple disciplines, consultants, suppliers, and evolving design requirements.
For years, sustainability discussions in architecture were often broad, qualitative, or difficult to compare consistently across projects.
As reporting frameworks mature, projects can increasingly be evaluated not only on aesthetics, cost, or certifications, but also on measurable carbon performance. Stricter regulations are also likely to increase scrutiny around the decisions behind that performance, including material selection, procurement strategies, assembly systems, documentation quality, and design coordination. In some cases, this may even intensify broader discussions around whether replacing existing buildings or constructing new ones can be justified from a lifecycle carbon perspective.
As a result, firms that struggle to manage material information consistently could face growing disadvantages within the AEC industry. This is not necessarily due to a lack of technical expertise, but because projects increasingly require clear coordination, traceability, reliable documentation, and faster adaptation to evolving requirements.
In this context, the ability to organize, verify, and communicate material strategies may become a competitive advantage rather than a purely administrative task. Operational clarity itself could increasingly shape client expectations, project delivery, and professional credibility.
Despite years of discussion around embodied carbon, lifecycle assessment, and material transparency, many architectural workflows still rely on fragmented information systems. Materials research is often spread across folders, PDFs, spreadsheets, manufacturers’ websites, consultant exchanges, and disconnected project files — information that may be outdated, inconsistent, or difficult to verify efficiently.
As carbon regulations become more demanding, this fragmented approach could become increasingly difficult to manage across larger teams, consultants, suppliers, and evolving project requirements. Projects are likely to require more centralized material references, reusable knowledge systems, comparable EPD documentation, and clearer coordination around material decisions throughout the design and construction process.
Information that was once handled informally within individual teams may increasingly need to become structured, accessible, traceable, and reusable across projects.
As a result, shared material libraries, collaborative research spaces, and more transparent documentation workflows could begin to play a much more significant role in architectural practice.
The practices that stand out in the coming years will not simply be those achieving the lowest carbon footprint, but those capable of balancing strong design with the growing complexity of carbon compliance, material decisions, and project coordination.
To prepare for this shift, teams increasingly need to adapt faster to evolving regulations, make clearer material decisions, document strategies consistently, and maintain transparency across consultants, suppliers, and collaborators.
By 2028, carbon compliance may no longer function as an isolated sustainability exercise, but as an increasingly important part of how project risks are managed and how teams are evaluated by clients, consultants, procurement teams, and collaborators.
In this context, the latest revalu platform updates and its new collaborative workspaces are designed to help AEC teams centralize, compare, document, and coordinate material decisions through traceable, reusable, and continuously updated material data — creating a more reliable shared source of knowledge across projects and teams.
Explore how revalu can support your workflow through a practical demo with a revalu expert.
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