Join us for a free, immersive Flash Charette on minimizing embodied carbon in design materials! This will be a fast-paced, team-based session where participants work together in real time to tackle a focused design challenge. No expertise required; just bring your curiosity.

This hands-on event dives into one of the trickier corners of sustainable design: minimizing embodied carbon in flooring, ceiling, wall materials, and furniture. Working in small groups, you'll navigate real material trade-offs — weighing environmental impact against performance, cost, and other practical considerations — and come away with a sharper eye for sustainable material selection.



The session opens with a clear, accessible overview of embodied carbon and why it matters when evaluating the environmental impact of interior materials. From there, you'll jump into the collaborative activity, selecting building material combinations with the lowest possible embodied carbon footprint while balancing the real-world factors that make these decisions genuinely complex.

Learning Objectives: 

• Define embodied carbon and evaluate its role in assessing the environmental impacts of building materials and design decisions. 
• Analyze material selection factors and trade-offs to support sustainable decision-making in building projects. 
• Apply strategies for identifying low embodied carbon material combinations using insights from case studies. 
• Assess the outcomes of the Flash Charrette and their implications for sustainable construction practices. 

Speakers:

Katia Lucuy, Associate, Sustainability Analyst + LCA Specialist, HLW BEYOND 

Jonce Walker, Principal, Global Director of Sustainability and Wellness, HLW BEYOND