The carbon footprint of your apartment.
Where you live has a climate cost attached to it long before you turn on a light. Most of that cost is decided by one thing: what the building is made of. Here is how the math works, and how a mass timber community changes it.
A building carries embodied carbon, the emissions released to make and assemble its materials, before anyone moves in. Concrete and steel are carbon intensive. Mass timber stores the carbon trees pulled from the air as they grew. Choosing a timber building near campus, where you can walk instead of drive, is one of the largest climate decisions attached to where you live.
Every building keeps two columns. Most only ever fill the first.
Think of a building's climate impact like a balance sheet. Conventional construction runs up a carbon cost in materials. A timber building offsets part of that cost with carbon it has stored. The difference is the footprint you live inside.
Figures reflect peer-reviewed life cycle assessments comparing functionally equivalent buildings. Exact results vary by design, region, and study boundaries. The direction is consistent across the research: timber buildings carry a materially lower carbon footprint than concrete and steel equivalents.
The footprint follows the material from forest to front door.
A building's carbon story is not a single number. It is a path. Here is the same path two ways, and where they split.
Forest
A growing tree pulls CO2 from the atmosphere and stores it as wood. A quarry or steel mill does the opposite from the start.
Carbon absorbedMill
Engineered timber is cut and laminated with far less heat than firing cement or smelting steel, so manufacturing emissions stay low.
Low energyBuild
Prefabricated timber panels arrive ready to assemble, cutting waste and time on site compared with poured concrete.
Less wasteLive
The stored carbon stays locked in the structure for decades while you live in it. Your daily choices inside the unit do the rest.
Carbon heldThe building sets the floor. You set the rest.
A low-carbon building is the biggest single lever, and it is one you only pull once, when you choose where to live. From there, a handful of everyday habits decide how light your footprint actually lands.
Live where you can walk
Housing near campus cuts the transportation emissions that often outweigh everything happening inside the apartment. Steps from OSU means most days you may not drive at all.
Mind heating and cooling
Conditioning air is the largest energy draw in most homes. Modest thermostat habits and full use of insulated, energy-efficient windows make the biggest dent.
Run efficient by default
Energy-efficient appliances, LED lighting, and shorter, fuller laundry and dishwasher loads quietly lower your footprint without changing how you live.
Carbon, buildings, and you
Does the building I live in actually affect my carbon footprint?
Yes. A building carries embodied carbon, the emissions released to manufacture and assemble its materials, before anyone moves in. Concrete and steel are carbon intensive, while mass timber stores carbon absorbed by trees as they grew. Peer-reviewed life cycle assessments find reinforced concrete buildings emit on average around 43% more greenhouse gas than functionally equivalent mass timber buildings.
Why is concrete bad for the climate?
Cement, the binding ingredient in concrete, is responsible for roughly 8% of global CO2 emissions. Most of that comes from the chemical process of making cement itself, where heating limestone releases carbon dioxide directly, on top of the fossil fuels burned to reach the required temperatures.
How does mass timber lower a building's carbon footprint?
Trees absorb carbon dioxide as they grow and lock it in their wood. When that wood becomes the structure of a building, the carbon stays stored for the life of the building rather than returning to the atmosphere. Substituting mass timber for concrete and steel also avoids the heavy manufacturing emissions of those materials, so the building both stores carbon and emits less to build.
Where does INTRO Columbus get its timber?
INTRO Columbus is built from mass timber sourced from responsibly managed U.S. forests. Domestic sourcing means the wood travels a shorter distance than imported materials, which helps keep transportation emissions low, and managed forests regrow what is harvested. The timber forms the structural superstructure of the building and is left exposed across 10-foot ceilings in every home.
What can I personally do to lower my carbon footprint in an apartment?
Choosing an energy-efficient, walkable building near campus is the largest lever, because it shrinks both the building's footprint and your daily transportation emissions. Inside the unit, the highest-impact habits are managing heating and cooling, using energy-efficient appliances and lighting, reducing waste, and walking or biking instead of driving.
Live in the lower column.
INTRO Columbus is the tallest mass timber student housing community in the U.S., steps from Ohio State. Now preleasing for Fall 2027.
Join the VIP Waitlist- World Economic Forum. Four ways to make the cement industry more sustainable. Cement manufacturing is responsible for about 8% of global CO2 emissions.
- Yale Environment 360. The Cement Industry, One of the World's Largest CO2 Emitters, Pledges to Cut Greenhouse Gases.
- "Life cycle assessment of mass timber construction: A review." Building and Environment, 2022. Embodied GHG emissions of reinforced concrete buildings averaged roughly 43% higher than mass timber alternatives.
- "Comparison of Embodied Carbon Footprint of a Mass Timber Building Structure with a Steel Equivalent." Buildings (MDPI), 2024.
- Arizona State University. Curbing concrete's carbon emissions with innovations in cement manufacturing. One ton of cement produces roughly 0.8 to 0.9 tons of CO2.