MECLA Spotlight on Digital Technologies for Lowering Embodied Carbon

Digital technologies have a crucial role to play in the pathway to net zero in construction. Across the entire supply chain, from manufacturers to designers and builders, digital technologies are used to help reduce embodied carbon. These technologies help industry meet the complexities of decarbonisation with innovative and diverse digital solutions in myriad ways.  
 
On the 31st March MECLA hosted a Spotlight on Digital Technologies for Lowering Embodied Carbon featuring a diversity of speakers including suppliers, designers and engineers speaking about the different technologies they use to achieve lower carbon outcomes. The presentations cover technologies in both the commercial and residential sector, demonstrations on different ways digital twins can be used, how digital modelling helps inform design decisions, and what tools engineers are using to track the embodied carbon of projects. 

Speakers:

• Calum Prasser – Principal Digital Project Manager at Mott MacDonald
• Richa Sud – Senior Sustainability Consultant at TTW
• Bigitte Danks – Structural Engineer at ARUP
• Iain McDonald – Manager Carbon Abatement at Bluescope
• Tom Petty – Founder at GA Construct

 Key Takeaways:

•  Many engineers are finding synergies between digital engineering and carbon reduction through BIM based upfront embodied carbon calculating which allows them to treat embodied carbon as a design parameter
•  Digital technologies can help increase client understanding on the topic of embodied carbon in many ways
•  On the manufacturing side, BlueScope is able to leverage digital twin modelling to modify hundreds of different parameters to see how it impacts outputs such as embodied carbon
• Data input is the crucial focus point, the better data input the more informative the models become
• Digital technologies can be used to make comparisons across structural elements to inform design decisions