The Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator (EC3) tool, a pioneering, open-source program for measuring and evaluating carbon emissions found in a plethora of building materials for the Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and Operations (AECO) industry, will be publicly-released at the 2019 Greenbuild International Conference and Expo in Atlanta, GA from November 19-22.

Skanska USA and C Change Labs partnered with the University of Washington’s Carbon Leadership Forum to create a free tool that will allow the AECO industry to meet their goal of calculating and reducing the carbon footprint of building materials for their materials specifications and procurement.

The innovators received financial support from Microsoft, the Charles Pankow Foundation, Interface, the MKA Foundation, and 30 or more such entities.

Greenbuild is the largest annual event for the green building and sustainability industry field. This year it offers educational sessions, green building tours, networking, and keynote events, as well as a 300-plus exhibitor Expo floor. This year, 44th U.S. president Barack Obama will feature as the keynote speaker.

The AECO industry has grown increasingly concerned about building materials and their emissions but the lack of data or overly-complex data about embedded carbon in such materials has made it difficult to make carbon-smart decisions. The EC3 tool allows users to search more than 16,000 building materials by performance requirements, global warming potential, and more.

Greenbuild 2019 is owned and operated by Informa Connect, a division of Informa, and presented by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC).

Learn more about the EC3 tool: http://www.carbonleadershipforum.org/projects/ec3/

Learn more about Greenbuild 2019: https://greenworldalliance.org/greenbuild-2019-comes-to-atlanta/

Written by Nicole Foulke