The Road to Net Zero Is Paved with Digital Technology

My name is Luka Stefanovic. I'm an architecture industry specialist at Vectorworks. Today I want to discuss something that's very important to me. 

The climate crisis requires action to reduce emissions on a global scale. With the construction industry being a large contributor — up to as much as 38% of total emissions worldwide — it needs to put in effort proportionate to its share.

But here’s the problem: as architects, we may not always feel that we have the resources, knowledge, or time to devote effort without diverting our design focus.

I’d like to challenge this notion. Nowadays, there are solutions to reduce the amount of time and effort required to perform accurate carbon assessments. And in the case of Vectorworks, these solutions are integrated directly into the software, providing a convenient method for carbon assessments in the same software you’re using for design.

This is why I say that the road to net-zero carbon emissions is paved with digital technology. In the rest of this article, I’ll explore these solutions to show you that carbon consciousness doesn’t need to be a chore — it can be a business opportunity and a new service architects can offer to clients.

Firstly, we need to discuss the two main players when it comes to carbon emissions. Up until recently, when we talked about carbon emissions, we were largely talking about operational carbon.

Operational carbon concerns emissions from energy used in the day-to-day running of buildings — this includes things like lighting, heating, cooling, powering appliances, and more. For decades, the construction industry has been aware of this type of emissions and has been working to reduce them.

The other side of the coin is embodied carbon, which has only recently started to enter mainstream conversations as a key consideration to reaching net zero. A report by the Green Building Council in 2019 shows that embodied carbon contributes as much as 11% of global carbon emissions.

Embodied carbon is typically defined as carbon emissions associated with materials and construction/transportation processes throughout the whole lifecycle of the built asset. If you’re looking for more information on what embodied carbon is and how to reduce it, we’ve discussed it before — read our blog post here.

My larger point is that operational carbon is being reduced due to decades-long efforts throughout the construction industry. We have a responsibility to bring embodied carbon to this level as well. And technology can make this effort significantly faster, cheaper, and more effective.

A good BIM model constitutes the base for whole-lifecycle embodied carbon assessments with accurate material quantities. Together with reliable input data for material properties available out of the box, it gives you confidence that your primary work will also provide the foundation for whole-lifecycle carbon assessments.

With architects increasingly expected to do whole-lifecycle carbon assessments, the subject of charging fees for them is still a grey area. Many practices have been manually setting up Microsoft Excel workbooks to do basic carbon assessments or have used one of many tools that require manual material quantity input, but it’s not sustainable for designers to have additional pressure on their already busy workload from something that adds nothing to their bank balance.

The Vectorworks Embodied Carbon Calculator has significantly automated this process and allows you to provide a service to clients in a way you haven’t been able to do before or have been spending a great deal of time doing.

Much like in a BIM workflow, you can impact the sustainable aspects of a project in a more meaningful way early in project development. The earlier you can gain insight into a building’s energy performance, the earlier you can act and design better solutions rather than having limited maneuvering space in later project stages.

While the design is still looking at massing or generic walls with nominal thicknesses without defined materials in the wall buildup, you can still use Energos to gain insight into the project’s energy performance with minimal effort required beyond what you already must do to deliver the model and drawings.

As the design and model evolve and more detail is added, the assessment evolves, too — it becomes more accurate once walls, floors, and roofs have a defined buildup with components of exact thicknesses and properties such as lambda values.

Energos takes all this into account and produces a quick energy performance evaluation that requires little input and provides you with insight that allows you to make informed design decisions that lead to more sustainable outcomes.

An essential aspect of tackling carbon assessments early in the design process is the persuasive power it lends to designers when arguing the case for more sustainable solutions. Reluctant clients, contractors, local authorities, and other stakeholders may warm to specific ideas and initiatives if shown numbers and evidence to back up bold design choices.

Designers need to stand behind their decisions, and technology can provide the foundation to stand on, especially when it comes to sustainable solutions called into question by reluctant project participants.