A new industry project codenamed ‘iCAT’ is launched – with the aim of creating an everyday design tool to facilitate carbon assessment.

A new collaborative industry project team led by AEC3 UK is developing the Interoperable Carbon Assessment Toolkit or iCAT for embodied carbon calculations, which will enhance the design and life cycle management of zero carbon and low impact buildings.

AEC3 UK is leading an expert academic and industry project team, including: the University of Northumbria, BSRIA, Faithful and Gould, RIBA Enterprises, Autodesk, and the University of Bath. The iCAT project is part-funded by the Technology Strategy Board (TSB).

Focusing on the early, feasibility and pre-design stages, iCAT will enable designers, cost consultants and their clients to minimise life cycle carbon and economic costs though improved decision-making.

iCAT will be available as an interoperable online tool, using data from the University of Bath's Inventory of Carbon and Energy (ICE) database, along with other carbon embodiment and building modelling data from mainstream design and analysis tools.

"We welcome the development of iCAT, which will exploit the benefits of interoperable design tools. iCAT offers a much-needed integration of carbon assessment data and methodologies to manage building carbon data from cradle to grave," said Mark Bew, chairman of BuildingSMART UK and a director of Scott Wilson.