Autodesk : New Carbon Calculator Offers Hope for Reducing Carbon in the Building Industry

As a leader in design and construction software solutions for many high-emissions industries,Autodesk recognizesthe vital importance ofreducing carbon. This reality hasAECindustries focused on the importance of making smarter choices around building materials, an option notreadily available until today.

Over the last year, we'veworked with the Carbon Leadership Forum, in collaborationwith Skanska, C Change Labs and nearly 50 partners, to create theEmbodied Carbon in Construction ('EC3') tool, launched today at theGreenbuild Expoin Atlanta, and now available in public beta.

Learn more about embodied carbon from the Carbon Leadership Forum.

The impact of the built environment is undeniable-it contributes almost 40%of CO2 emissions worldwide. And as global growth continues, it's estimated that between today and 2060, the amount of building floorspacewill double. That'sequivalent to building anentire New York City every month for40 years.Moreover, at least half of the carbon footprint of these new buildings will take the form of embodied carbon-the greenhouse gas emitted in the building material supply chain, including raw material extraction, transport, refining, and manufacturing of building materials.

So how can we mitigate the proliferation of embodied carbon? To date, the industryhasstruggled to understand and measure itin their projects. For example,two materials can look identical and perform the same, but have extremely different amounts of embodied carbon; a fully recycled steel beam from a renewably-powered electric arc furnace and a virgin steel beam from a coal-fired furnace may be superficially identical, butradically different in their impacts to climate.

See how the Autodesk Foundation supports low carbon innovation.

The EC3 tool takes data fromEnvironmental Product Declarations(EPDs) toalign, assess, and presentthe embodied carbon impacts in a way that's easy to use and act upon. This solution enables the building industry to easily access and view material carbon emissions data, allowing them to make carbon-smart choices during material specification and procurement. What would have taken days by experts can now be done in minutes by general practitioners.

Screenshot of embodied carbon data as shown in the BIM 360 Model Viewer

Autodesk is a lead sponsor of the tool, and we've already enabled EC3's integration withBIM 360. Now, AEC professionals will be able to transfer project material quantity data directly from BIM 360 to the EC3 tool with the push of a buttonand visualize the embodied carbon impacts of materials choices in the Large Model Viewer. The integration leverages BIM to speed up materials takeoff and turns the model into an interactive embodied carbon heat map. The EC3 tool integration is now available as aBIM 360 app.

A rendering of Microsoft's Redmond campus modernization project.

Acknowledging that what gets measured gets managed, the EC3 tool's ultimate goal is to make thereduction of carbon in the built environmenteasy,accessible, andscalable to the building industry.In a recent Gates Notes blog post,Buildings are bad for the climate, Bill Gates recognizes 'the latest advances in technology, and the urgency of getting to zero emissions' using the EC3 tool as an example. Microsoft is currentlypiloting the toolduring a campus remodel at their corporate headquarters in Redmond, WA. Additionally, thePort of Seattleis also using the tool in pilot projects. Autodesk's support of the EC3 tooland ourcontinuedinvestmentin building performance analysistools help architects,engineers, and general contractorswork more collaboratively tomanage thetotal carbonfootprintof their projectsand drive towards a carbon positive built environment that's better for people and the planet.