Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios has developed a free tool called FCBS Carbon to help architects estimate and reduce the whole-life carbon emissions of a building proposal.
FCBS Carbon takes the form of a spreadsheet that can be used throughout the design process to predict a building's carbon emissions over its lifespan to help architects work out how to reduce or offset them.
Whole-life carbon emissions mean all the CO2 produced by a building, including its construction, demolition and the carbon footprint of all the building materials.
Above: FCBS Carbon is a non-technical spreadsheet. Top image: an example of an output sheet
Users can then alter input data to compare different building elements and materials to identify sustainable alternatives for a proposal and the scale of carbon offsetting required to achieve zero-carbon. Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios' aim is to encourage design teams to analyse the potential environmental impact of a building they are designing and identify the changes required to make it net-zero carbon.
The studio developed FCBS Carbon in response to its commitments to the Architects Declare initiative, which is calling on the architecture industry to help alleviate the climate crisis.
Graphs are generated to help visualise a building's embodied carbon
The spreadsheet's designers hope it will also encourage UK firms to meet the targets of the RIBA 2030 Climate Challenge, which calls for all new and retrofitted buildings to achieve net-zero whole-lif...