AI system for embodied carbon in construction

Winvic Construction Ltd, a contractor that specialises in the design and delivery of multi-sector construction and civil engineering projects, and its partners have created an Artificial Intelligence (AI) system for predicting the embodied carbon in construction (ASPEC).

The main view in ASPEC. On the left it shows the Revit model which the user can rotate and zoom in / out. The pie charts correlate to the materials within the model. The spreadsheet links to the carbon emission database to produce the embodied carbon value for the building (Photo: Winvic)

Winvic, the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol), and Costain make up the consortium that was awarded £800,000 in funding by Innovate UK to create a fit-for-purpose technology solution to help drive down industry carbon emissions and meet the government’s green targets.

The company says that users will be able to upload a 3D BIM file – a Revit model – to the web-based system and it will calculate the building or infrastructure project’s carbon output within minutes. Materials can then be altered within ASPEC to directly affect the real-time calculations of the carbon data – this allows construction schemes to be designed in a ‘green first’, non-time-consuming approach for the very first time adds Winvic.

Digital Engineering Manager at Winvic and ASPEC project lead, Morgan Hambling, commented, “When we started this Innovate UK funded project two years ago, embodied construction calculation methods were onerous at best and there was simply no efficient way for design teams to proactively reduce the carbon footprint of projects.

“Therefore, ASPEC is transformational for the industry as contractors, consultants and material manufacturers can at last sit in the driving seat with this fit-for-purpose cloud-based tool.”