Event Description

California is entering one of the most significant periods of building and infrastructure investment in its history. As communities work to meet ambitious climate goals while delivering the housing, schools, transportation, data centers, and public infrastructure the state needs, reducing embodied carbon has become one of the built environment's greatest opportunities and greatest challenges.

Carbon Forward is California's annual forum for advancing lower-carbon materials and climate-smart construction, convening architects, engineers, developers, manufacturers, policymakers, and building owners to move innovation into standard practice. As California prepares to host the 2028 Olympic & Paralympic Games, it gives the region a rare chance to show how major investment in buildings and infrastructure can drive change.

Southern California pours more concrete than almost anywhere in the country, an estimated 15–20 million cubic yards a year. How that concrete is made is about to change. Carbon Forward: Towards the 2028 Olympic & Paralympic Games will serve as the official launch of a regional initiative to bring 1 million tons of low-carbon concrete alternatives to market by 2030, backed by the City of Los Angeles, City of Long Beach, County of Los Angeles, and USGBC California.  

Expect sessions on lower-carbon concrete, steel, mass timber, and other materials, procurement strategies, circular construction, and policy developments, alongside real-world case studies. This event will also mark the release of a first-of-its-kind regional assessment of lower-carbon concrete suppliers and technologies.

Backed by the California, Carbon Forward is where California comes together to shape what it builds next. 

Who Should Attend?

Southern California's architects, structural engineers, green building consultants, and material specifiers belong in this room, alongside the city and county procurement officers whose purchasing decisions will be directly shaped by the findings released at the event.

Ready-mix suppliers, precast producers, cement manufacturers, and material innovators will find this is the room where policy meets procurement.

Environmental policy professionals, public agency sustainability leads, and planners navigating California's evolving green building codes will hear from the government partners co-leading this initiative.

And developers, construction firms, and corporate sustainability leads with large building footprints in Southern California will want to understand what the regional shift toward low-carbon concrete means for their projects ahead of the 2028 Olympic & Paralympic Games.