(F08) Steps to Piloting a Net Zero Construction Site: A Case Study of Meta Data Centers

The carbon footprint of construction phase activities is often overlooked in the building industry. There are significant barriers to going green on a typical job site, including gaps in understanding baseline impacts, clear direction on where to target carbon reduction strategies, and a dearth of sustainable and market-ready alternatives to conventional construction equipment and fuel. How can contractors, owners, consultants and trades collaborate to reduce jobsite carbon emissions and make inroads toward market transformation? In this session, Meta, Turner, Stok and Sunbelt Rentals come together to showcase how construction relationships can be leveraged to enhance jobsite sustainability using a case study from one of Meta's LEED v4 Gold - targeted data center projects. We will begin by providing an overview of how clear and measurable goals that target construction emissions can drive action among owners and contractors. Further, we will showcase baseline trends in carbon impacts from specific construction activities based on data collected from a global portfolio of projects, and highlight highest-impact sources of emissions. Next, we will cover the range of cutting-edge low-emissions technology solutions that are currently available in the market, and how we have piloted some of these solutions at a Meta data center site. We will share our framework for thoroughly evaluating these solutions against stringent environmental, technical, and financial criteria using a triple bottom line approach, and summarize the results of this evaluation. Our presentation will cover not just the technical outputs of this pilot, but also the cross-functional stakeholder engagement process that was critical to its success, with a focus on how this collaborative model can be replicated broadly to make construction practices sustainable.