Carbon emissions from the built environment are a paramount factor regarding climate change and resource efficiency. The construction industry has so far mainly been focusing on emissions from the operation of buildings, disregarding any further carbon incurred over the life cycle of projects (Whole Life Carbon WLC) like carbon embodied in the building elements and emissions due to maintenance. Recent work in this field has verified the importance of WLC and has set the theoretic and methodological bases for WLC assessments. However the application of these principles in actual carbon calculations lacks consistency with the results differing substantially between practitioners & WLC is therefore not widely adopted. The project seeks to address this by forming a team of LCA experts & property stakeholders to work out a clear and usable practical framework for WLC assessment & carbon certification of buildings. This will standardise WLC implementation across the construction industry and eliminate discrepancies. Meaningful WLC comparisons will then be enabled, competitiveness in the sustainability industry will be stimulated and carbon reductions will be encouraged.

iCIM is an everyday design tool that facilitates carbon assessment by supporting designers and informing their decisions throughout the building lifecycle. It leads towards zero carbon and low impact building by enabling : a) The analysis of carbon embodiment and building modelling data from mainstream design and specification tools. For example, it has been shown to be fully interoperable with Autodesk’s Revit tool – taking in information from the model and returning it seamlessly. b) The development of a building lifecycle carbon signature at any stage with particular emphasis on the early, feasibility and pre-design stages. The tools are available to designers, contractors and owners through fully interactive 3D, tables and charts in a web interface. c) Carbon costing of any construction form, removing the constraints of current methods which only support pre-defined construction assemblies. d) Carbon and capital cost comparison. The tool demonstrates the impact of key decisions and allows them to explore alternatives and determine which decisions drive low impact design.