Today: The city is investigating just how much carbon it takes to build its famous skyline, from the concrete foundations all the way up to the glass that frames skyscrapers; the cost of durable CDR; Formula One goes green.

Welcome back: New York City is drilling into the carbon cost of constructing its famous skyline.

WSJ Pro Sustainable Business's Clara Hudson writes that a city-funded study aimed at shedding light on the climate impact of its towerblocks is scrutinizing everything from the steel beams that form the skeletons of the skyscrapers to the concrete that binds them together and the glass panels that become their walls and windows.

The effort will shape new building standards.

Concerns about a building’s climate impact typically center on heat and electricity use. The project marks a shift in focus, digging into the emissions that accumulate from building a structure’s shell, including the foundation, interiors, and other architectural elements.

Researchers are homing in on every part of the construction process, from the emissions generated by cement mixing to the impact of shipping materials to a job site—for example, steel beams coming from Pennsylvania. 

Construction is responsible for 23% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to New York City’s climate website, while the embodied carbon from just cement manufacturing is responsible for about 8%. About 2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide were emitted in New York City’s boroughs from construction, lawn-care and industrial machinery in 2020, which the city said was akin to the emissions from five natural gas-fired power plants over one year.

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For carbon dioxide removal, “cost reductions rely on deployment,” International Energy Agency analysts wrote in October. “Only by building, testing and iterating can CDR technologies climb their learning curves.”

But as deployment has accelerated over the past year, the cost of removing CO2 has actually increased, writes Henry Kronk for Sustainable Business.

That’s according to a recent durable CDR pricing survey conducted by OPIS, a Dow Jones company, and CDR.fyi. It shows that the price of removing a metric ton of CO2 via biochar rose about 10%. Direct air capture, or DAC, prices were up 11%, while biomass storage roughly doubled.

According to the survey, a majority of biochar and BECCS developers see prices as flat or rising through 2030. This runs counter to the widely shared belief that the price of engineered CDR will fall as the market scales.

One reason for this is startups maturing. Carbon companies are running out of equity funding and now need to finance operations through sales. Some have had to charge higher prices to do so.

Formula One had just celebrated its 70th anniversary when the world’s premier motor-racing series found itself at a crossroads, The Wall Street Journal's Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg write.

A sport built to the glory of the internal combustion engine and propelled by the roar of the V-12 was hurtling into an era of electric vehicles and corporate responsibility. F1 executives had come to a hard realization: If their high-octane enterprise was to survive another 70 years, then Formula One could no longer hold back the tide of electrification.

So, ahead of the 2026 season, the globe-trotting series conceived as the ultimate R&D department for the automotive industry redrew the rules—and took the sport into uncharted territory—by mandating that all of its race cars must be hybrids. For the first time since 21 gentleman racers lined up for the inaugural Formula One Grand Prix at Silverstone in 1950, the pinnacle of motor sports would run in equal measure on internal combustion and electric power. F1 was going green.

• Can Formula One Ever Be Sustainable? (WSJ)

• Jeep-maker Stellantis and Chinese auto manufacturer Leapmotor plan to increase production of electric vehicles in Europe. (WSJ)
   
• A pension fund is re-evaluating its stake in TotalEnergies following the French oil major’s decision to exit U.S. offshore wind power. (FT)
   
• Geothermal company Fervo Energy is seeking to raise more than $1.3 billion as it looks toward an initial public offering. (Latitude Media)
   
• U.S. Navy might rests on ships and submarines powered by small nuclear reactors. Why not adapt the technology for the grid? (WSJ)
   
• Microsoft is in talks over shelving its 2030 target of matching 100% of its hourly electricity use with renewable energy purchases. (Bloomberg)
   
• Sweden and other EU countries are racing to decarbonize steel production. It all hinges on green hydrogen. (Canary Media)
   
• World food prices rose for a third consecutive month in April, driven by higher energy costs and Middle East supply disruptions. (WSJ)

WSJ Pro Sustainable Business gives you an inside look at how companies are tackling sustainability. Send your comments to editor Perry Cleveland-Peck at perry.cleveland-peck@wsj.com. Follow the WSJ Pro Sustainable Business team on LinkedIn at perrycp, clara-hudson and yusuf_khan.