A unique whole lifecycle embodied carbon emission calculator designed specifically for UK buildings has been launched.

NZC Hub calculates a development’s embodied emissions through all the established phases of its existence. These range from stage A, covering raw material supply, manufacturing and transport, to D, comprising end-of-life activity, such as material recovery, reuse and recycling.

The cloud-based platform has been unveiled by NZC Solutions, which develops dedicated software innovations for the British construction industry. The company was founded in 2023 by Tim Reeve, a former technical director of top 20 UK building company Winvic, who has more than 30 years’ experience in the sector.

Mr Reeve said: “We believe NZC Hub is the first cradle-to-grave calculator designed specifically with a British focus, rather than being tailored mainly for overseas construction markets. In addition to maximum relevance and up-to-date data, it offers UK users substantial benefits in important respects such as precision, speed, effort and performance monitoring, compared to established methods of tracking embodied lifecycle emissions.”

He said that at the heart of NZC Hub was its bespoke, real-time library, verified annually by the respected independent Achilles Utility Vendor Database audit. This facility contained third party authenticated carbon factor index figures for thousands of building products and materials used in Britain, taken from documents such as their environmental product declarations.

Mr Reeve said the database was made possible by application programming interfaces, which allowed different varieties of software to communicate with each other easily.

Explaining how the platform was operated, he said: “Users report information about factors such as product mixes and quantities, via straightforward means like drop-down boxes, at the design stage.

“The Hub then automatically multiplies each of these amounts by the relevant material’s carbon factor index and produces an emission tonnage, expressed in the usual way as units of carbon dioxide equivalent. The platform can then easily aggregate these individual figures into overall totals.”

Highlighting some other advantages the Hub offered users, Mr Reeve said its intelligent data consolidation meant they needed to enter details only once but could amend those for the construction process stage easily, if necessary. He added the tool also avoided operators having to produce reports at each phase of a building’s lifecycle.

Mr Reeve said: “NZC Hub can additionally improve accuracy and transparency by ensuring that consistent data points are used throughout supply chains, including by architects, manufacturers, engineers, developers and contractors. It can therefore permit businesses to obtain exact and updated information rapidly from providers, without having to chase these individually, for example.

“The platform thus answers the call in the UK Green Building Council’s Whole Life Carbon Roadmap for companies in value chains to reduce embodied emissions by collaborating, including via maintaining central databases.”

Mr Reeve said NZC Hub not only allowed businesses to readily monitor embodied emissions at each lifecycle stage – and compare these to industry-set targets – for individual developments but do so across multiple sites or even their entire property asset portfolios. The tool’s extensive analytical capabilities also made it easier for users to make important decisions about the future, such as determining any remedial actions needed.

He said: “NZC Hub conforms automatically with all relevant law, regulation and standards, including the current second edition of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors’ Whole Lifecycle Carbon Assessment.

“It also complies with the UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard, launched last autumn, which provides, for the first time, a clear and unified definition of a net zero building applying to all construction types across Britain.”

Annual subscriptions to the Hub, which was a year in development, range between £6,000 and £8,000 per licensed user. NZC Solutions will premiere the new platform at the Digital Construction Week event, in Excel London, on 4 and 5 June, where it will occupy stand D386.

Mr Reeve said: “NZC Hub’s unveiling follows our launch last January of what we believe was the first online emission calculator of any kind designed specifically for the UK construction sector. The Hub, with its ability to cover a building’s whole lifecycle, differs from earlier calculators we’ve marketed, however, as these focused on carbon produced in developments’ initial product and construction process stages or by whole businesses.”