Global design practice Perkins&Will, in collaboration with climate action-focused software company C Change Labs and nonprofit organization Building Transparency Canada, has been awarded a grant to develop a tool that facilitates the design of low-carbon buildings. 

Called the Tally Climate Action Tool or tallyCAT, it will build on existing technologies, giving users access to material and product information, in real time, within commonly used BIM programs, such as Revit and Rhino. 

The CleanBC Building Innovation Fund (CBBIF) based out of British Columbia awarded the team $460,000 as part of its mission to fund projects in the Canadian province that accelerate the availability and affordability of low-carbon building solutions. The tool is expected to launch in March 2023. It will be globally available as an integrated plugin and provide open access to a library of materials within design software. 

“Our goal is to make it easy for designers to understand the climate impacts of their material choices through a plug-in palette of lower-carbon products,” says Manuela Londono, sustainable building advisor at Perkins&Will. 

TallyCAT addresses the lack of real-time information on material performance and Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), which is the primary way carbon is tracked and reduced in products. This isn’t the team’s first effort in reducing carbon impacts. Building Transparency and C Change Labs were collaborators on the Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator (EC3), a tool for measuring and comparing embodied carbon in construction materials. Perkins&Will was one of the pilot partners involved with testing EC3. 

Building Transparency also recently launched Tally, a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) application that quantifies and analyzes carbon within building materials before they are used. TallyCAT will build upon Tally and EC3 within BIM programs, making carbon reduction an active part of the building process. 

“Bringing these resources together to create an advanced open-access tool is the natural next step to fostering a better building future across the industry,” says Stacy Smedley, executive director and chair of Building Transparency.

Perkins&Will, C Change Labs, and Building Transparency aren’t alone in their effort to develop software that fosters sustainable design. The likes of KieranTimberlake, SOUR Studio, CallisonRTKL, and Sasaki have featured innovative digital tools that respond to the climate crisis.