SWORDS, Ireland — Trane Technologies has announced a commitment to reduce its embodied carbon by 40% by 2030, an industry first.

Building on its progress in sourcing more sustainable solutions like low-carbon steel, Trane will focus its efforts on partnering with suppliers of materials used in buildings and building equipment, including steel, aluminum, copper, and refrigerants, while continuing to incorporate circular design criteria into its product development, a Trane Technologies press release said.

Buildings are responsible for 40% of global energy-related carbon emissions. A critical step toward lowering the overall carbon footprint of buildings is to reduce their amount of embodied carbon, which is the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions associated with a product’s lifecycle, including the extraction of raw materials plus the manufacturing, transportation, and recycling of materials and products, the press release said.

“To create a more sustainable world, we must address emissions from the built environment — everything from reducing embodied carbon to the electrification of heating to optimizing energy with digital solutions,” said Dave Regnery, chair and CEO of Trane Technologies. “We are proud to be a first mover, partnering with our suppliers to scale more sustainable materials, designing our products for circularity, and helping our customers achieve their performance and sustainability goals.”

“There is no decarbonizing our future without decarbonizing buildings, and we are proud to collaborate with industry leaders like Trane Technologies who are helping drive significant carbon footprint reductions for themselves and their customers,” said Diane Holdorf, executive vice president, Pathways, World Business Council for Sustainable Development.

The new commitment aligns with guidance from global nonprofit building sector organizations, Trane’s press release said. It builds on the company’s 2030 Sustainability Commitments, with a baseline year of 2019, including the Gigaton Challenge, a pledge to reduce customer greenhouse gas emissions by 1 billion metric tons (one gigaton) — the largest science-based climate commitment of any global company related to product emission reductions within a single decade, according to Trane’s press release. The company has also pledged to be net-zero by 2050.