A state-of-the-art software tool enabling UK construction design professionals to review and reduce embodied carbon emissions while still sketching or modelling their developments has been launched.

 

NZC InDesign allows operators, including architects, to quickly gauge projected lifecycle emissions from their buildings’ intended component products and materials – such as steel, concrete and glass – at the concept and early design stages, by uploading 3D models.

 

The package also allows these users to compare alternative options and make changes to incorporate more environmentally friendly contents than originally envisaged easily.

 

Computer aided design and Revit-friendly, the platform features a large, verified environmental data library, which provides real time emission details, therefore ensuring decisions about building ingredients are based on robust and up-to-date data.

 

NZC InDesign meets widely recognised and adopted relevant standards, such as the International Organization for Standardization’s ISO 14064, edition two of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors’ Whole Life Carbon Assessment Standard, and the UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard (UKNZCBS).

 

The new tool has been developed by NZC Solutions, a UK-based software development company, dedicated to supplying the domestic construction industry. The business was founded in 2023 by Tim Reeve, a former technical director of top 20 building company Winvic, who has more than three decades’ experience in the sector.

 

Explaining the thinking behind NZC InDesign, Mr Reeve said: “The biggest contributor to embodied emissions from UK buildings in practice is early decisions about matters like their materials, structure and form, so getting these verdicts right offers the greatest scope for reductions.

 

“Unfortunately, though, carbon assessment currently usually happens too late, after these key considerations have been set in stone and high levels of embodied emission often effectively locked in for a building’s lifetime, which could be decades or even centuries.

 

“Our new product is a game changer, as it effectively converts environmentally friendly design at the start of the process from a theoretical possibility into a practical reality.”

 

Mr Reeve said that the innovation would make carbon management, not just measurement, part of the early workflow, turning minimising embodied emissions into a key design parameter, alongside factors such as cost.

 

He said: “NZC InDesign will be a major boost to many professionals, making it much easier for them to deliver low carbon or net zero projects that meet sustainability targets with maximum efficiency, by helping them avoid costly redesigns, for example. The innovation will also aid their businesses in satisfying ever-increasing demands for green developments from important groups, such as legislators – over matters such as planning requirements – plus regulators, customers, investors, buyers and tenants.

 

“By enabling users to future proof their buildings more easily against almost inevitably tighter environmental requirements from these groups in the years ahead, it will additionally help avoid the need for retrofitting, which studies have repeatedly shown can be many times more expensive than incorporating appropriate standards from the outset.”

 

Mr Reeve said NZC InDesign would also assist relevant companies, including those of users, to fulfil their own environmental, social and governance commitments.

 

He particularly highlighted the product’s potential importance in allowing design professionals to meet the demands of the UKNZCBS. Introduced fully in April, following collaboration between a wide range of industry bodies, this has provided a clear and almost universally applicable definition of a net zero British building for the first time.

 

Mr Reeve said: “We expect the impact of the new standard on the construction industry to be massive. Most previous comparable measures allowed buildings to be classified as net zero if emissions, whatever their levels, were balanced via methods such as carbon absorption, removal or offsetting. The UKNZCBS, on the other hand, sets stringent limits for most types of emission, with certification being withheld if even one of these ceilings is exceeded.

 

“Although currently voluntary, compliance with the standard is likely to become increasingly essential if UK buildings are to achieve purposes such as attracting financial backing and retaining their value. This will mean the levels of control over embodied emissions that NZC InDesign permits from the earliest stages of a project becoming almost inescapable in the industry.”

 

Mr Reeve added that, on a wider canvas, as the built environment currently contributed about 40 per cent of all emissions, NZC InDesign also should prove a major help in the UK meeting its overall carbon targets. These include a 68 per cent reduction on 1990 emission levels by 2030 and an 87 per cent cut by 2040, as the country progresses towards honouring its legally binding commitment to become net zero by 2050.