Hackathons / Sustainability & embodied carbon
Carbon Takeoff
Feed in a design drawing, pull out the quantities and swap materials to see embodied carbon at the design stage, before anyone builds.
The problem
Embodied carbon equals material volume times carbon intensity. The intensity comes from EPDs, the nutrition labels of building products. A factory-specific EPD beats an industry average by a wide margin.
Most builders pay a consultant $5,000–$10,000 per project and spend about two person-months collecting data. The report covers one job, and builders reuse none of it.
Permit drawings arrive as PDFs in many drafting styles. They show the structure and leave out siding, insulation and mechanical systems, which carry a lot of carbon.
Ideas to build
- Quantity extraction from permit-standard PDF drawings that holds up across drafting styles.
- A live model with drop-downs for what drawings leave out: cladding, insulation and mechanical systems.
- Material choices that account for distance. Low-carbon concrete in Edmonton loses its edge if a truck hauls it in from BC.
- A privacy step that strips builder names and addresses before anything reaches a cloud API.