Calculator Totals Carbon Cost of Construction Materials

Brief 

A new construction embodied-carbon calculator from Procore draws on a database of materials to give users a read on the environmental impact of their projects. Factors involved in the calculations include mining and harvesting, manufacturing, packaging and transport.

Insight

Tracking embodied carbon is part of a larger focus within green building that has been sweeping through the construction industry.

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) investors have increasingly scrutinized how construction materials and building activities contribute to climate change, while the SEC recently proposed detailed rules for companies to report on their climate risk and environmental work.

Environmentally-conscious construction has been taking off in 2022, and contractors have been showing off their green projects with gusto, such as Lendlease’s new Chicago highrise built with low-carbon concrete.

Daniella Meyer, Procore partner manager, told Construction Dive that the intended users for the database are architecture, engineering and construction professionals. Meyer said that it is extremely important for the procurement process to get input from all stakeholders, so that builders don’t waste time going back and forth with owners and procurement specialists on orders.

“That’s why this is such a collaborative thing, because while it ends up being the owners that are ultimately responsible for what the emissions are, it is going to be the designers, the architects and the engineers that determine what types of materials are best used and put into these buildings,” Meyer said.

Procore saw a large increase in revenue in 2021, as technology became more widely adopted on the jobsite in the wake of issues stemming from the pandemic.

While Procore hopes the tool will help companies realize their sustainability targets and reduce carbon emissions, Meyer said that no one program would be the solution to all environmental and sustainability issues. Meyer added that Procore was open to integrating its proprietary software with outside programs to solve problems.