S 7998 NY
Enacts the "low-carbon building construction act"
A state bill is a proposed law in a state legislature — separate from the U.S. Congress. Learn more →
Summary
New York S 7998 enacts the Low-Carbon Building Construction Act, which requires buildings, additions, and renovations greater than 25,000 square feet to meet standards reducing embodied carbon emissions from construction materials and processes. Projects can comply by maintaining and reusing at least 45% of an existing structure, selecting covered products (including concrete, steel, and engineered wood) that achieve 15-30% reductions in embodied carbon compared to industry averages, or demonstrating through building life-cycle assessment that the project meets embodied carbon reduction targets. Licensed design professionals must certify compliance with the standards and calculations, and the Department must create a public database and website for reporting project data, education, and resources. The Department must conduct random audits on 3% of projects annually and report baseline embodied carbon emissions and progress toward reduction targets to the Governor and Legislature.
AI-generated plain-language summary of the bill text — neutral, and may be imperfect. See the full text below for the exact wording.
Official abstract
Enacts the "low-carbon building construction act"; relates to requiring construction of any building, addition or renovation greater than 25,000 square feet meet certain standards intended to reduce the embodied carbon emissions associated with the construction.
Sponsor (1)
- Brian Kavanagh Democratic · primary
1 coauthor / cosponsor
- Cordell Cleare Democratic · cosponsor
Action history (4)
- May 15, 2025 REFERRED TO HOUSING, CONSTRUCTION AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT · upper
- Jan 7, 2026 REFERRED TO HOUSING, CONSTRUCTION AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT · upper
- May 7, 2026 AMEND (T) AND RECOMMIT TO HOUSING, CONSTRUCTION AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT · upper
- May 7, 2026 PRINT NUMBER 7998A · upper
Text versions (3)
Full text
Full text imported from assembly.state.ny.us
Skip to main content
New York State Assembly Speaker Carl E. Heastie
--> --> -->
Assembly Members
Legislative Info
Public Hearings
Speaker's Press
Assembly Reports
Committees & More
Bill Search Home Laws Legislative Calendar Public Hearing Schedule Assembly Calendars Assembly Committee Agenda Javascript must be enabled to properly view this page.
Bill No.: Summary Actions Committee Votes Floor Votes Memo Text LFIN Chamber Video/Transcript S07998 Summary: BILL NO S07998A   SAME AS SAME AS A08456-A
  SPONSOR KAVANAGH   COSPNSR CLEARE   MLTSPNSR   Add §382-c, Exec L   Enacts the "low-carbon building construction act"; relates to requiring construction of any building, addition or renovation greater than 25,000 square feet meet certain standards intended to reduce the embodied carbon emissions associated with the construction.
Go to top S07998 Text:
STATE OF NEW YORK ________________________________________________________________________
7998--A
2025-2026 Regular Sessions
IN SENATE
May 15, 2025 ___________
Introduced by Sens. KAVANAGH, CLEARE -- read twice and ordered printed, and when printed to be committed to the Committee on Housing, Construction and Community Development -- recommitted to the Committee on Housing, Construction and Community Development in accordance with Senate Rule 6, sec. 8 -- committee discharged, bill amended, ordered reprinted as amended and recommitted to said committee
AN ACT to amend the executive law, in relation to enacting the "low-car- bon building construction act"
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem- bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. Short title. This act shall be known and may be cited as 2 the "low-carbon building construction act". 3 § 2. The executive law is amended by adding a new section 382-c to 4 read as follows: 5 § 382-c. Low-carbon building construction. 1. For the purposes of 6 this section, the following terms shall have the following meanings: 7 (a) "covered products" means: 8 (i) structural concrete products, including ready mix, shotcrete, 9 precast, and concrete masonry units; 10 (ii) reinforcing steel products, including rebar and post tensioning 11 tendons; 12 (iii) structural steel products, including hot rolled sections, hollow 13 sections, plate, open-web steel joists, and metal deck; 14 (iv) engineered wood products including mass timber products such as 15 laminated veneer lumber, parallel strand lumber, cross-laminated timber, 16 dowel laminated timber, nail laminated timber, glulam laminated timber, 17 glulam beams and columns, and structural sawn lumber; and 18 (v) other materials the department designates by rule and reviews 19 every three years; 20 (b) "design professional of record" means a licensed architect or 21 engineer; 22 (c) "embodied carbon emissions" means the amount of greenhouse gas 23 emissions associated with the extraction, manufacturing, transport,
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets [ ] is old law to be omitted. LBD11868-03-6
S. 7998--A 2
1 installation, maintenance, and disposal of construction products 2 throughout the product's life; 3 (d) "global warming potential" means the potential climate change 4 impact of a product or process as measured by a life-cycle assessment. 5 It is the metric for tracking embodied carbon emissions and is reported 6 in units of carbon dioxide equivalent; 7 (e) "product and facility-specific environmental product declarations" 8 means a type III environmental product declaration, as defined by the 9 international organization for standardization standard 14025, repres- 10 enting a single product from a single manufacturing facility; and 11 (f) "whole building life-cycle assessments" means a cradle to grave 12 assessment covering life-cycle stages A-C as defined by the interna- 13 tional organization for standardization standard 21931-1, excluding 14 modules B6 and B7, or similarly robust whole building life-cycle assess- 15 ment methods or whole life carbon assessment standards that evaluate the 16 environmental impacts of a building including, at a minimum, global 17 warming potential. 18 2. The code shall require construction of any building, addition, or 19 renovation greater than twenty-five thousand square feet to meet at 20 least one of the following standards intended to reduce the embodied 21 carbon emissions associated with the construction. 22 (a) Construction of a building may comply with the requirements of 23 this section by maintaining and reusing at least forty-five percent of 24 an existing structure and/or envelope if the building does not exceed 25 the square footage of the existing structure by more than fifty percent. 26 The code or rules adopted by the department shall specify how the 27 percentage of an existing structure maintained and reused shall be 28 calculated, such as by cost, mass, area, volume, and/or other suitable 29 metrics. 30 (b) Construction of a building, addition, or renovation may comply 31 with the requirements of this section by demonstrating, and requiring in 32 the construction documents, that the life-cycle stage A1 through A3 33 embodied carbon emissions of the covered products used, measured in 34 terms of global warming potential for each covered product and summed up 35 at the project level, achieves the reduction in embodied carbon emis- 36 sions set forth in subdivision three of this section when compared to 37 the project's summed industry average global warming potential. Building 38 projects shall use project-specific material quantities and product and 39 facility-specific environmental product declarations to demonstrate 40 compliance. The code or rules adopted by the department shall specify 41 how covered materials shall be calculated, such as by cost, mass, 42 volume, and/or other suitable metrics, and shall establish how industry 43 averages shall be determined. 44 (c) Construction of a building, addition, or renovation may comply 45 with the requirements of this section by demonstrating through a whole 46 building life-cycle assessment that the project achieves the reduction 47 in embodied carbon emissions set forth in subdivision three of this 48 section when compared against a reference building that is functionally 49 equivalent in size, geographic location, function, and thermal perform- 50 ance. The materials and material quantities in the proposed building and 51 the reference building may vary, provided that the buildings are func- 52 tionally equivalent. 53 3. The code shall require that to be in compliance with this section 54 pursuant to paragraph (b) or (c) of subdivision two of this section, 55 construction projects commenced on or after January first, two thousand 56 thirty and on or before December thirty-first, two thousand thirty-two
S. 7998--A 3
1 shall achieve a fifteen percent reduction in embodied carbon emissions 2 from a project-wide static baseline using the carbon leadership forum 3 2030 materials baselines or comparable industry data sources specified 4 in the code or by rules adopted by the department, and construction 5 projects commenced on or after January first, two thousand thirty-three 6 shall achieve a thirty percent reduction in embodied carbon emissions 7 from such project-wide static baseline. 8 4. (a) The design professional of record responsible for the embodied 9 carbon calculations and reporting for any construction project subject 10 to the requirements of this section shall be specified in the architect 11 of record construction documents. The design professional of record 12 shall stamp an attestation that the designed building complies with the 13 code requirements and any rules adopted by the department pursuant to 14 this section. The attestation shall be submitted along with the permit 15 and documents showing compliance. 16 (b) For a building to be in compliance with this section pursuant to 17 paragraph (b) of subdivision two of this section, the design profes- 18 sional of record shall update quantity and embodied carbon emissions 19 calculations based on product and facility-specific environmental prod- 20 uct declarations from procured products and attest that they are accu- 21 rate and comply with the construction document requirements to the best 22 of the design professional's knowledge. These calculations shall be 23 verified as accurate within the industry standard of care with a letter 24 stamped by a design professional of record. 25 (c) For any construction project subject to the requirements of this 26 section, the department shall provide a worksheet to be completed by 27 project teams for consistent reporting. 28 (d) The design professional of record shall enter all embodied carbon 29 emissions reduction data on a standard form and public database created 30 and maintained by the department. At a minimum, the database shall 31 indicate whether the compliance pathway under paragraph (a), (b), or (c) 32 of subdivision two of this section was selected, and shall include basic 33 information about the project, project area, the reporting worksheet, 34 and how the project met the standards for the selected pathway. 35 (e) The department shall develop a public-facing website with educa- 36 tional resources to support implementation. The website shall: 37 (i) detail the embodied carbon emissions reduction requirements in the 38 code; 39 (ii) outline reporting requirements and guidelines; 40 (iii) provide instructions for the use of the database; 41 (iv) provide guidance for whole building life-cycle assessments; 42 (v) provide checklists, templates, and training to support implementa- 43 tion; and 44 (vi) provide a list of software that may be used to support compliance 45 pursuant to paragraph (c) of subdivision two of this section. 46 (f) The department shall conduct random audits on three percent of 47 projects subject to the requirements of this section annually, and shall 48 make audit results public. 49 5. The department shall report to the governor and the legislature a 50 baseline assessment of global warming potential of building construction 51 as defined by this section by December thirty-first, two thousand twen- 52 ty-nine, and progress towards achieving reductions in annual global 53 warming potential of building construction by December thirty-first, two 54 thousand thirty-two, and every three years thereafter. 55 § 3. This act shall take effect immediately.
Go to top
Sitemap
Request Information
Directions and Maps
Comments
Data from OpenStates. View on OpenStates →
Comments