Embodied carbon is the carbon resulting from building materials and accounts for about a third of buildings' total carbon impact. Because it requires an understanding of material types and quantities, embodied carbon is difficult to predict at the earliest stages of design, but that's also when designers can have the most impact for the cheapest; carbon-intensive systems like structure are heavily dependent on those basic decisions like building form and primary materials.
For the last six months, Forma's embodied carbon analysis has been available to users in Beta, providing a machine learning-based prediction that allows you to see those relative impacts from day one. See architects from Lake Flato, Stantec, and Nikken Sekkei show how they've used the tool.
As the video below shows, the analysis requires only a few inputs - a building type, structural system, and envelope material - making these results accessible to any designer, regardless of carbon-expertise, in a matter of seconds.
If you have used the analysis before, we encourage you to check back in! Like the rest of Forma, we're continuously pushing improvements. Recently, these have included:
- Broader building support - the analysis now works on Basic and Line buildings
- Support for Forma's Compare mode
We're especially excited about the latter because, while the analysis is simple to run, it can still be difficult to know how to interpret results in "tCO2e" - by viewing multiple results side-by-side, you can now easily see the relative differences between building forms and primary materials. This workflow is shown below.
Looking ahead, we'll work to maintain the accessibility the analysis has now while extending its transparency and customizability. The analysis is currently in Beta; if you're interested in giving feedback and impacting its development, please reach out!
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