Building Transparency, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing sustainable building practices, is celebrating the five-year anniversary of its flagship tool, the Embodied Carbon and Construction Calculator (EC3), at this year’s Greenbuild International Conference + Expo. The nonprofit will be showcasing at Booth #537 and hosting two speaking sessions focused on strategies for accelerating decarbonization across the building and construction sectors.
“Our team looks forward to Greenbuild every year, as it provides an opportunity to unite global leaders in green building to promote sustainable practices and raise awareness around building standards,” said Stacy Smedley, Executive Director of Building Transparency. “This year is especially exciting for us as we celebrate EC3’s five-year milestone. Since its launch, the tool has seen tremendous growth, helping both individual professionals and enterprise partners take action on embodied carbon. We invite everyone to stop by our booth and wish EC3 a ‘happy birthday’!”
EC3 Celebrates Five Years of Impact
The EC3 tool houses an extensive, third-party Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) database and building material data from BIM models, construction estimates, and as-built plans. As a free, easy-to-use tool, EC3 helps users:
- Find and compare building materials based on supply chain-specific EPD data.
- Assess a construction project’s potential embodied carbon emissions during the design phase.
- Calculate the as-built embodied carbon emissions of a project.
- Declare products using EC3’s standardized EPD format.
- Audit and verify digital EPDs.
Launched publicly in 2019 by the Carbon Leadership Forum and more than 50 industry partners, the EC3 tool was managed and expanded by Building Transparency, which was founded in 2020. Since then, the tool has grown to feature thousands of digital EPDs, enabling the measurement, comparison, and reduction of embodied carbon emissions.
With over 52,000 users in 76 countries, more than 14,500 building projects, and 157,000+ digitized EPDs, EC3 is supported by leading global companies such as Amazon, Autodesk, Google, Interface, Microsoft, and Skanska, all of which are prioritizing embodied carbon reduction.
Driving Education and Awareness
At Greenbuild, Building Transparency will continue its efforts to educate the AEC industry on the significance of embodied carbon. The nonprofit’s Carbon Action Networks – which consist of owners, contractors, and manufacturers – will host pop-up events throughout the conference to share information on industry tools and their collaboration with Building Transparency.
Additionally, Building Transparency will be surveying attendees at its booth to gather insights on the state of embodied carbon awareness, which will inform the upcoming Embodied Carbon Action Report, slated for release in early 2025.
For more insights, conference attendees can join the following sessions led by Building Transparency team members:
Thursday, November 14:
- 10:30 – 11:30 AM ET: The Role of Owners, Contractors, Designers, and Manufacturers in Decarbonization
- 3:00 – 4:00 PM ET: Advancing EPD Evolution: AI, Technology, Data Transfer, and Utilization
About Building Transparency
Building Transparency is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that provides open-access data and tools that support broad and swift action across the building industry in addressing embodied carbon’s role in climate change. Formed in 2020, Building Transparency hosts manages and maintains the Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator (EC3) tool, which provides thousands of digitized EPDs in a free, open-source database, and tallyLCA, the nonprofit’s life cycle assessment tool. Building Transparency strives to provide the resources and education necessary to shape a better building future through promoting the adoption of the EC3 tool and tallyLCA, establishing the official materialsCAN, contractorsCAN, and ownersCAN programs, and working with global policymakers.
