Massachusetts 2025-2026 Regular Session

Massachusetts House Bill H3337 Compare Versions

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2	2	HOUSE DOCKET, NO. 2812 FILED ON: 1/16/2025
3	3	HOUSE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . No. 3337
4	4	The Commonwealth of Massachusetts
5	5	_________________
6	6	PRESENTED BY:
7	7	Sean Garballey
8	8	_________________
9	9	To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in General
10	10	Court assembled:
11	11	The undersigned legislators and/or citizens respectfully petition for the adoption of the accompanying bill:
12	12	An Act relating to embodied carbon emission reductions in state-funded projects.
13	13	_______________
14	14	PETITION OF:
15	15	NAME:DISTRICT/ADDRESS :DATE ADDED:Sean Garballey23rd Middlesex1/16/2025 1 of 7
16	16	HOUSE DOCKET, NO. 2812 FILED ON: 1/16/2025
17	17	HOUSE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . No. 3337
18	18	By Representative Garballey of Arlington, a petition (accompanied by bill, House, No. 3337) of
19	19	Sean Garballey that the Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance implement
20	20	embodied carbon emission reductions in state-funded projects. State Administration and
21	21	Regulatory Oversight.
22	22	The Commonwealth of Massachusetts
23	23	_______________
24	24	In the One Hundred and Ninety-Fourth General Court
25	25	(2025-2026)
26	26	_______________
27	27	An Act relating to embodied carbon emission reductions in state-funded projects.
28	28	Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority
29	29	of the same, as follows:
30	30	1 SECTION 1. Chapter 7C of the Massachusetts General Laws, as appearing in the 2022
31	31	2Official Edition is hereby amended by adding the following section: -
32	32	3 Section 73. (a) For the purposes of this section, the following terms shall have the
33	33	4following meanings unless the context clearly requires otherwise:
34	34	5 "Awarding authority" (i) a state agency for a contract for a public works project as
35	35	6defined in Section 44A of chapter 149 of the Massachusetts General laws; (ii) Institutions of
36	36	7higher education; (iii) Natural resource agencies, including the department of conservation and
37	37	8recreation, and the department of environmental protection; (iv) other state entities that receive
38	38	9funding from any state, general, supplemental or capital appropriations for a public works project
39	39	10contracted directly by the state agency; and (v) The department of transportation. 2 of 7
40	40	11 "Covered product" (i) Structural concrete products, specifically ready mix, shotcrete,
41	41	12precast, and concrete masonry units; (ii) Reinforcing steel products, specifically rebar and post
42	42	13tensioning tendons; (iii) Structural steel products, specifically hot rolled sections, hollow
43	43	14sections, plate, and metal deck; and (iv) Engineered wood products including mass timber
44	44	15products such as laminated veneer lumber, parallel strand lumber, cross-laminated timber, dowel
45	45	16laminated timber, nail laminated timber, glulam laminated timber, glulam beams and columns,
46	46	17and structural sawn lumber.
47	47	18 “Cradle-to-gate”, activities associated with a product or building’s life cycle from the
48	48	19extraction stage through production stage, and covering modules A1 through A3 in accordance
49	49	20with ISO Standards 14025 and 21930.
50	50	21 “Cradle-to-grave”, activities associated with a product or building’s life cycle from the
51	51	22extraction stage through disposal stage, and covering modules A1 through C4 in accordance with
52	52	23ISO Standards 14025 and 21930.
53	53	24 "Construction contractor", the business entity, a general contractor or joint venture
54	54	25contractor, holding the prime contract with the governmental entity to construct the eligible
55	55	26project.
56	56	27 "Department", the division of capital asset management and maintenance.
57	57	28 "Designer of record", licensed design professional, who is responsible for leading the
58	58	29design team, who shall oversee and manage the design, specification, or both, of the eligible
59	59	30products. 3 of 7
60	60	31 "Eligible project", a construction project larger than 50,000 gross square feet of space as
61	61	32defined in the state building code; or a building renovation project with a greater than 50 percent
62	62	33of the assessed value and the project is larger than 20,000 gross square feet of occupied or
63	63	34conditioned space as defined in the state building code.
64	64	35 "Embodied carbon", greenhouse gas emissions from the harvesting, extracting,
65	65	36manufacturing, transportation, installation, maintenance, replacement, and disposal of eligible
66	66	37products.
67	67	38 "Environmental product declaration", a type III environmental product declaration, as
68	68	39defined by the ISO 14025. Other equally robust life-cycle assessment methods and metrics that
69	69	40have uniform standards in data collection consistent with the ISO 14025, industry acceptance,
70	70	41and integrity may also be used. For consistency in the required calculations, only the impacts
71	71	42from life-cycle stages A1 through A3, also referred to as "cradle-to-gate," may be included.
72	72	43 “Global warming potential”, a numeric value that measures the total contribution to
73	73	44global warming from the emission of greenhouse gases, or the elimination of greenhouse gas
74	74	45sinks.
75	75	46 "Greenhouse gas" as defined in Chapter 298 of the acts of 2008.
76	76	47 “LCA Commons”, federally managed LCA Commons, an interagency community of
77	77	48practice for Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) research methods. This community of practice
78	78	49collaborates to share expertise and methods to move toward common Federal data modeling
79	79	50conventions and make Federal data sets freely available through a web-based data repository. 4 of 7
80	80	51 "Responsible bidder”, the eligible product supplier, the subcontractor that manufactures
81	81	52or provides for installation, or both, of the eligible product.
82	82	53 “Whole Building Life Cycle Assessment”, a cradle-to-gate whole building life cycle
83	83	54assessment performed in accordance with ISO 14040 and ISO 14044, excluding operating
84	84	55energy, that can be compared to a reference baseline building. The reference building shall be of
85	85	56the same size, geographic location, and thermal performance as the proposed building, and shall
86	86	57be functionally equivalent per ASTM E2921-22.
87	87	58 SECTION 2. On or before the date one year following enactment, the department shall
88	88	59promulgate rules that will result in embodied carbon reductions of at least 30% in eligible
89	89	60projects. The rules must establish that an awarding authority shall include in a specification for
90	90	61bids for an eligible project that the responsible bidder will comply with one of the following
91	91	62embodied carbon reduction compliance pathways to achieve the reduction in embodied carbon
92	92	63emissions:
93	93	64 (a)Performance pathway: comparative whole building life cycle assessment at
94	94	65design:
95	95	66 (i). projects shall conduct a cradle-to-grave whole building life cycle assessment
96	96	67performed in accordance with ISO 14040 and ISO 14044, excluding operating energy, and
97	97	68demonstrating a minimum 30 percent reduction in global warming potential (GWP) as compared
98	98	69to a reference baseline building from the LCA commons and/or database established in
99	99	70SECTION (3). The reference baseline building shall be of the same size, geographic location,
100	100	71and thermal performance as the proposed building, and shall be functionally equivalent per 5 of 7
101	101	72ASTM E2921-22. The products and product quantities in the proposed building and the reference
102	102	73building are permitted to vary;
103	103	74 (ii). software used to conduct the whole building life cycle assessment, including
104	104	75reference baseline building, shall have a data set compliant with ISO-14044, and ISO 21930 and
105	105	76the software shall conform to ISO 21931. The software tools and datasets shall be the same for
106	106	77evaluation of both the baseline building and the proposed building;
107	107	78 (b)Re-use pathway: building re-use wherein at least 45% of the existing structure is
108	108	79maintained.
109	109	80 (i). An alteration or addition to an existing building shall maintain at a minimum 45
110	110	81percent combined of the existing building’s primary structural elements (foundations; columns,
111	111	82beams, walls, and floors; and lateral elements) and existing building enclosure (roof framing,
112	112	83wall framing and exterior finishes). Window assemblies, insulation, portions of buildings
113	113	84deemed structurally unsound or hazardous, and hazardous materials that are remediated as part of
114	114	85the project shall not be included in the calculation;
115	115	86 (c)Prescriptive pathway: Comparison of Type III Environmental Product Declarations at
116	116	87procurement. Each product that is permanently installed and listed as a covered product shall
117	117	88have a Type III environmental product declaration (EPD). Eligible projects shall demonstrate
118	118	89that the project’s embodied carbon, averaged across 90 percent of covered products, is lower
119	119	90than industry average by 30%. To achieve this reduction, eligible projects must use project-
120	120	91specific material quantities and environmental product declarations to demonstrate that the
121	121	92products specified in contract documents have a lower global warming potential than the
122	122	93industry average as defined by the United States environmental protection agency by 30%, 6 of 7
123	123	94industry-wide environmental product declarations applicable to the product, or as established by
124	124	95an appropriate state agency.
125	125	96 (d) Verification of compliance with a pathway will be confirmed with the department and
126	126	97awarding authority through the following methods:
127	127	98 (i) For the performance pathway, a summary of the GWP analysis produced by the
128	128	99software and signed by the design professional of record shall be provided in the construction
129	129	100documents as documentation of compliance;
130	130	101 (ii) For the building reuse pathway, documentation shall be provided in the construction
131	131	102documents and signed by the design professional of record to demonstrate compliance;
132	132	103 (iii) For the prescriptive pathway, calculations to demonstrate compliance, Type III EPDs
133	133	104for products required to comply if included in the project, and signature of the design
134	134	105professional of record shall be provided on the construction documents. Updated EPDs for
135	135	106products used in construction shall be provided to the owner at the close of construction and to
136	136	107the department or awarding authority upon request. The department may require inspection
137	137	108during and at completion of construction to demonstrate substantial conformance. Inspection
138	138	109shall be performed by the design professional of record or third party acceptable to the enforcing
139	139	110agency.
140	140	111 (e) Data collected through any of the three compliance pathways described under
141	141	112subsections (a-c) of this section must be consistently transferred by the department or awarding
142	142	113authority to the federal LCA Commons and/or database established by the department in Section
143	143	1143. The project details will be anonymized, except for each eligible project’s global warming
144	144	115potential. 7 of 7
145	145	116 (f) The Department will conduct biennial reviews, starting 2 years after the rules
146	146	117promulgated pursuant to Section 2 are finalized, to determine further reduction goals over time,
147	147	118consistent with the intent of achieving net zero emissions by 2050, and will accordingly establish
148	148	119by rules increased embodied carbon emission reduction targets across all three pathways. In
149	149	120these reviews, the department may also consider adding additional compliance pathways.
150	150	121 SECTION 3. On or before the date one year following enactment, the department shall
151	151	122establish a database of representative Whole Building Life Cycle Assessments and/or elect to
152	152	123rely on the federally managed LCA Commons, reflecting an appropriate range of size, function,
153	153	124location, and occupancy conditions. This database and/or the LCA Commons, will be used to
154	154	125identify baseline buildings to evaluate improvements on global warming potential for covered
155	155	126projects.