DII5 was conceived as a full scale demonstration project: a last mile logistics facility designed to test more than 40 market ready decarbonization initiatives across structure, enclosure, interiors, MEP systems, civil, landscape, and construction practices. Rather than focusing solely on operational energy, the project targeted embodied carbon hotspots where industrial buildings have historically been hardest to change—concrete, steel, insulation, finishes, and mechanical systems—while also advancing health, biodiversity, and workforce experience.
This session tells the story of how Amazon, ZGF Architects, Henderson Engineers, and Graycor worked as an integrated team to translate climate ambition into real world investment decisions. From mass timber and transparent wood sourcing across 12 states and seven species, to MEP embodied carbon accounting using TM65, to first time contractor tracking of A4 and A5 emissions, DII5 reveals what happens when owners support and create market demand and de-risk lower carbon solutions. The project also confronts the practical realities of regional availability and constructability— and how outcomes may vary by market.
Attendees will gain an inside look at how carbon accounting and cost considerations, supply chain outreach, and construction phase decision making can work together to drive durable impact. More importantly, they will leave with strategies for investing in materials, systems, and partnerships that move decarbonization from aspiration to action—one delivery station, and one supply chain, at a time.
