EOC ECO2: Net Zero Team of the year 2022

25 November 2022

We’re delighted to have won the ‘Net Zero Team of the Year’ award at the Construction News Workforce Awards for our approach to tackling net zero and our work developing and sharing our open source embodied carbon tool EOC ECO₂, a carbon data plug-in for Autodesk Revit.

According to the World Green Building Council, building and construction activities account for 39% of energy-related CO2 emissions. The Paris Agreement aims to limit global warming to 1.5’C.

Our plug-in EOC ECO₂ allows users to measure all the embodied carbon within structural framing or any volumetric element. To advance the reduction of carbon emissions across the building sector we’ve made the plug-in open source. We believe that the more stakeholders with access to such a tool, the more we can learn and share across disciplines, gaining a better understanding of how realistic the NetZero 2050 challenge is. We believe that nobody should own the ‘IP’ on sustainability, and that’s why we decided to share the software free of charge.

We released the tool in late 2021 and to date the software has been shared with over 120 collaborating companies globally and has proved its worldwide appeal to architects, contractors and engineers alike. It is not limited to use in the construction sector. It can be adopted by any designer working in the AutoCAD Revit setting. Version 2.1 was released in June 2022.

EOC ECO₂ runs on Autodesk REVIT to give a 3D ‘Digital Twin’ of the building design providing a visual breakdown of the embodied carbon (Upfront Carbon Value) for the various elements modelled: structural, architectural or other. Any modelled element is assessed, allowing some degree of potential customisation of the tool to specific uses and applications. The automated calculation considers everything in the construction process from ‘Cradle-to-Practical-Completion’ (A1-A5), including at source raw material extraction, fabrication of the building elements, delivery to site and installation/assembly activities during the construction stage. The beauty of the plugin is rapid communication of the score – there are multiple onscreen outputs and graphics giving an immediate understanding of the efficiencies of their project.

EOC ECO₂ has allowed us to calculate the embodied carbon of past and current projects and benchmark against targets like LETI & SCORS, helping develop a sustainability strategy on projects while having data and knowledge to accurately advise clients on structural approaches that need to be adopted to work towards achieving Net Zero Targets. We have been able to discourage unnecessary demolitions and quantify the advantage of maintaining part of existing structures. On projects internationally we have analysed and optimised the impacts of the construction material supply chain.

Using EOC ECO₂, we’ve developed an incredibly valuable data set that helps us make informed decisions on how we specify and use materials, and ultimately achieve more sustainable outcomes. The ability to communicate more clearly about sustainability, a topic often mis-addressed, allows us to make decisions while being conscious that we work in an industry that has a large impact on the natural environment.