A new calculator to measure the carbon content of building materials

During the year, Autodesk worked with the Carbon Leadership Forum, in collaboration with Skanska, C Change Labs and more than 30 other partners to create the Carbon tool incorporated into the construction (hereinafter the “EC3” tool), launched during the Greenbuild Expo.

The impact of buildings on the environment is undeniable: they generate almost 40% of CO2 emissions worldwide. In addition, as global growth continues, it is estimated that between today and 2060, the size of buildings will double. It's like building a city like New York every month for 40 . In addition, at least half of the carbon footprint of these new buildings will be in the form of incorporated carbon: the greenhouse gas emitted in the supply chain of construction materials, in particular extraction, transport , and the refining of raw materials as well as the manufacture of building materials.

So how can we mitigate the proliferation of incorporated carbon? Until now, the sector has struggled to understand and measure it in its projects. For example, two materials may appear identical and have the same properties, but have extremely different amounts of incorporated carbon. A fully recycled steel beam from an electric arc furnace powered by renewable energy and a new steel beam from a charcoal oven may appear superficially identical, but be radically different in terms of impact on the weather.

The EC3 tool collects data from Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) [Environmental Product Declarations] to arrange, assess and present the effects of incorporated carbon in a simple to use and action-friendly way. This solution allows professionals in the construction industry to easily access and visualize data on carbon emissions from materials, allowing them to make judicious carbon choices when specifying and acquiring materials. Calculations that would have taken experts several days can now be made in a few minutes by non-specialized professionals.

Autodesk is one of the main promoters of this tool, and we have already integrated the EC3 tool into the viewer BIM 360. Now, architecture, civil engineering and building professionals will be able to transfer data on the quantity of materials needed for projects, directly from the BIM 360 viewer to the EC3 tool at the touch of a button to view the incorporated carbon effects of material choices in the large model viewer. Integration uses the BIM viewer to accelerate the analysis of materials and transforms the model into an interactive thermal map of the incorporated carbon. The integration of the EC3 tool is now available asBIM 360 application.

Since what is measured is managed, the ultimate goal of the EC3 tool is to make reducing carbon emissions in construction easy, accessible and scalable for the construction industry. In a recent Gates Notes blog post, Buildings are bad for the climate [Buildings are bad for the climate], Bill Gates acknowledges “the latest advances in technology and the urgency of achieving zero-rate emissions”, citing the EC3 tool as an example. Microsoft is currently test the tool during a remodeling of the campus at its headquarters located in Redmond, United States. In addition, the Port of Seattle it is also used in pilot projects. Autodesk's support for the EC3 tool as well as our continued investment in the development of building performance analysis tools allow architects, civil engineers and contractors to work more effectively together to manage the total footprint. of carbon from their projects and promote the use of positive carbon constructions that are better for humans and the planet.