(credit: Autodesk Help Page)
The built environment is responsible for approximately 40% of the greenhouse gas emissions in the world.
Embodied carbon vs operational carbon:
Everything that is built has a hidden climate impact due to the processes that occur before construction takes place and during the use of the building, with an extent to the post-use scenarios regarding decommissioning. This comprises Carbon Emissions that occur 'upfront' or are said to be 'embodied' in the materiality and construction of buildings (~12%) and the carbon emissions that occur due to the operation of buildings (~28%). To simplify, the carbon emissions of a construction can be divided into operational carbon and embodied carbon.
Why should I care about carbon analysis?
With embodied and operational carbon responsible for such a large percentage of global carbon emissions, it's important that architects and engineers take every opportunity to reduce a building's carbon footprint during the design phase. The design phase of a project will have a lasting effect on the project's carbon efficiency, so it's critical to optimize early and often as the project evolves.
What is Insight - Tech Preview?
Insight - Tech Preview provides architects with insights on embodied carbon impacts, starting with early stages of design.
As the first step towards our vision for Total Carbon Analysis, this Tech Preview provides a new capability to help architects get started with early phase embodied carbon analysis of building exterior walls. The Tech Preview is available to everyone, which allows you to get involved in the solution's early stages. We will be adding new capabilities on an ongoing basis. This is also the first in a series of developments underway for the next generation of Insight, which will bring together both operational and embodied carbon insights and our vision towards more sustainable building projects enabled through BIM workflows. As a cloud service, we'll be making updates on a regular basis.
How to Get Started
Access the Insight - Tech Preview download on your Autodesk Account. 1. Once logged in to your Autodesk Account, click your profile icon in the upper right corner . In the menu, select Products and services .
2. On the All Products and Services page, use the search bar and search for Revit. 3. Select the Revit card from the gallery. 4. Select the release year of Revit where you want to install Insight - Tech Preview. 5. Click "Extensions". 6. Locate Insight - Tech Preview in the list and click Download.
7. Open the downloaded file and follow the on screen instructions. 8. Once installed, you will find the Carbon Insight panel on the Analyze tab of the ribbon in Revit. See Carbon Insight Workflow for information on using carbon Insights with your models.