Case study: Embodied carbon in real estate & construction — a startup-to-enterprise scale story

Why It Matters

The built environment generates roughly 37 percent of global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions, and embodied carbon from materials, manufacturing, and construction processes now accounts for up to half of a new building's total lifecycle emissions (UNEP, 2024). As operational energy efficiency improves through electrification and stricter building codes, the relative significance of embodied carbon continues to grow. The Carbon Leadership Forum (2025) estimates that upfront embodied carbon in new US commercial buildings averages 450 to 550 kgCO2e per square metre at lifecycle stages A1 through A5, with best-practice projects achieving 250 to 350 kgCO2e per square metre. The gap between average and best practice represents an enormous market opportunity for technology companies that can help developers, architects, and contractors measure, benchmark, and reduce construction emissions.

Regulatory momentum is accelerating. California's Buy Clean Act sets maximum global warming potential thresholds for publicly procured structural steel, concrete, and flat glass. The EU Level(s) framework and revised Energy Performance of Buildings Directive signal future mandatory whole-life carbon assessments across European markets. The Greater London Authority already requires whole-life carbon assessments for all referable planning applications. In this environment, tools that enable transparent, auditable embodied carbon measurement are transitioning from voluntary differentiators to compliance necessities. The companies that provide these capabilities are scaling rapidly, but the path from startup to enterprise platform is fraught with technical, commercial, and organizational challenges that merit close examination.

Key Concepts

Whole-life carbon assessment (WLCA). WLCA quantifies greenhouse gas emissions across all lifecycle stages defined in EN 15978 and ISO 21931: the product stage (A1 to A3, covering raw material extraction, transport to factory, and manufacturing), construction process stage (A4 to A5), use stage (B1 to B7), and end-of-life stage (C1 to C4). For developers and policymakers focused on construction, stages A1 through A5 represent the most actionable lever because these emissions are released before occupancy and cannot be reduced through operational improvements.

Environmental product declarations (EPDs). EPDs are standardized, third-party-verified documents reporting the environmental impact of a specific construction product across defined lifecycle stages. The EC3 database maintained by Building Transparency now hosts over 150,000 EPDs globally (Building Transparency, 2025), covering concrete mixes, structural steel, insulation, cladding, and interior finishes. EPDs enable apples-to-apples comparison of carbon intensity between competing products, making them the foundational data layer for any embodied carbon measurement platform.

Carbon intensity benchmarking. Embodied carbon is typically expressed in kilograms of CO2 equivalent per square metre (kgCO2e/m2). Benchmarking enables comparison of a project's carbon performance against typology-specific baselines. The RIBA 2030 Climate Challenge sets targets of 600 kgCO2e/m2 for commercial offices at the 2025 milestone, declining to 350 kgCO2e/m2 by 2030 (RIBA, 2025). Without benchmarking, reduction claims lack context and are vulnerable to greenwashing.

Building information modeling (BIM) integration. Modern embodied carbon tools integrate directly with BIM software (Revit, ArchiCAD, Tekla) to automatically extract material quantities from 3D models and calculate associated emissions. This integration eliminates manual quantity takeoffs, reduces errors, and enables iterative carbon optimization at each design stage. BIM integration is widely considered a prerequisite for scaling embodied carbon assessment from boutique consulting engagements to automated, repeatable workflows.

Material substitution hierarchy. The most cost-effective decarbonization strategy follows a clear priority order: first, reduce material quantities through structural optimization (post-tensioned slabs, voided slabs, optimized grid spacing); second, substitute high-carbon materials with lower-carbon alternatives (ground granulated blast-furnace slag in concrete, electric arc furnace steel); third, specify biogenic materials such as mass timber or hempcrete that sequester atmospheric carbon; and fourth, offset residual emissions through verified carbon removal credits.

What's Working and What Isn't

What is working. The emergence of automated lifecycle assessment (LCA) platforms has transformed embodied carbon measurement from a specialized consulting exercise into a scalable software product. One Click LCA, originally founded in Helsinki in 2015, has grown from a niche tool used by sustainability consultants into an enterprise platform deployed on over 50,000 projects across 170 countries (One Click LCA, 2025). The company's trajectory illustrates how startup-to-enterprise scaling works in this sector. Early product-market fit came from serving sustainability consultants who needed faster, more accurate LCA calculations than spreadsheet-based methods allowed. The company then expanded into direct sales to developers and contractors, eventually securing enterprise agreements with organizations like Skanska, Lendlease, and Hines that required portfolio-wide carbon tracking.

Building Transparency's open-source EC3 tool followed a different scaling path, growing through community adoption and non-profit funding rather than commercial revenue. By making EPD data freely accessible and providing a browser-based carbon comparison tool, EC3 lowered the barrier to entry for smaller firms and created a network effect where more EPD submissions attracted more users. The organization reached critical mass when major concrete and steel producers began voluntarily publishing EPDs specifically to appear in the EC3 database.

BIM integration has proven to be the critical technical moat for commercial platforms. Companies that achieved seamless Revit and ArchiCAD plugins captured design-stage workflows, making their tools the default for carbon-conscious architects. One Click LCA's Revit integration, for example, allows designers to run carbon assessments directly from their 3D models without exporting data, reducing the assessment time from days to hours. This workflow integration drives retention and makes platform switching costly for enterprise customers.

What is not working. Data coverage remains the sector's most persistent challenge. Fewer than 30 percent of construction products globally have published EPDs (Building Transparency, 2025), which forces platforms to rely on generic or regional-average data for a significant portion of calculations. This data gap introduces uncertainty of 30 to 50 percent for individual material categories, undermining confidence in project-level results and creating audit risk for organizations subject to CSRD or SEC climate disclosure requirements.

Interoperability between platforms is limited. Projects using One Click LCA cannot easily transfer data to EC3 or Tally, and vice versa, creating data silos that frustrate developers working with multiple design teams. The lack of a universal data exchange standard for embodied carbon assessments means that enterprise customers often maintain parallel workflows across competing tools.

Market fragmentation by geography also complicates scaling. EPD programs, material databases, and regulatory requirements vary significantly between the US, EU, UK, and Asia-Pacific markets. A platform optimized for European EN 15804 EPDs may not accurately process North American EPDs created under ISO 14025 with different system boundaries and impact categories. Building a truly global product requires maintaining multiple regional databases and calculation engines, increasing development costs substantially.

Key Players

Established Leaders

• One Click LCA provides the leading commercial whole-life carbon assessment platform, used on over 50,000 projects in 170 countries with integrations across Revit, ArchiCAD, and major BIM platforms.
• Building Transparency maintains the open-source EC3 database and calculator, hosting over 150,000 EPDs and serving as the de facto public data layer for North American embodied carbon assessments.
• Autodesk integrated embodied carbon capabilities into its Forma platform and acquired lifecycle assessment technology to embed carbon analysis directly into its dominant BIM ecosystem.
• Arup operates as both a consulting leader and technology developer, with proprietary carbon assessment tools used across its global engineering practice and licensed to select clients.

Emerging Startups

• Tangible offers an AI-powered platform for real-time embodied carbon tracking during construction procurement, focusing on the gap between design-stage estimates and as-built carbon performance.
• 2050 Materials provides a materials database and carbon benchmarking platform targeting architects and product manufacturers, with a focus on early-stage design decisions.
• Morta (formerly Preoptima) uses generative AI to model embodied carbon at concept design stage before detailed BIM models exist, enabling carbon-informed decisions at the earliest project phases.
• CarbonCure Technologies operates at the material innovation level, injecting captured CO2 into concrete during mixing to reduce cement content while improving compressive strength.

Key Investors and Funders

• Breakthrough Energy Ventures has deployed significant capital into low-carbon construction materials and measurement technologies, including investments in CarbonCure and Sublime Systems.
• Grantham Foundation and ClimateWorks Foundation have provided philanthropic funding for Building Transparency and the broader EPD ecosystem infrastructure.
• 2150 is a European deep-tech VC focused on urban sustainability, with portfolio companies addressing embodied carbon in materials and construction technology.

Examples

One Click LCA: from Helsinki startup to global enterprise platform. Founded in 2015 by Panu Pasanen, One Click LCA began as a tool to automate lifecycle assessments that consultants were performing manually using spreadsheets and academic databases. The company's initial customers were Nordic sustainability consultancies frustrated by the 40 to 80 hours required for a single building LCA. By reducing assessment time to 4 to 8 hours through database automation and BIM integration, One Click LCA achieved product-market fit in the Nordic market by 2017. The company then expanded into the UK market in 2019, timed to coincide with the GLA's introduction of mandatory whole-life carbon reporting for major London developments. Revenue grew from approximately EUR 2 million in 2019 to over EUR 15 million by 2024 as the company secured enterprise contracts with Skanska, Lendlease, JLL, and CBRE (One Click LCA, 2025). The scaling challenge centred on maintaining calculation accuracy while expanding to cover 40+ national building codes and EPD programs. The company hired regional LCA experts and built a modular database architecture that allowed country-specific datasets to plug into a common calculation engine. By 2025, the platform supported assessments compliant with EN 15978, RICS, LEED, BREEAM, DGNB, and over 30 national green building rating systems.

Building Transparency and EC3: scaling through open data. Building Transparency launched the EC3 tool in 2019 with seed funding from the Skanska Innovation Fund, the Charles Pankow Foundation, and Microsoft's Climate Innovation Fund. The organization's strategy was to create a free, open-access EPD database that would become the industry standard, generating value through ecosystem effects rather than direct monetization. By 2025, EC3 hosted over 150,000 EPDs and served approximately 35,000 active users monthly (Building Transparency, 2025). The platform's influence extended beyond direct usage: several US state procurement agencies, including those in California, Colorado, and New York, adopted EC3 as a reference tool for Buy Clean compliance verification. The scaling challenge was sustainability of the non-profit model. Building Transparency relied on a mix of philanthropic grants, corporate sponsorships, and government contracts, with total annual revenue of approximately $8 million by 2025. The organization navigated tensions between maintaining open access and generating sufficient revenue to support a growing engineering team required to maintain data quality and build new features.

Tangible: bridging design-stage estimates to as-built performance. Tangible, founded in 2021, identified a gap in the market between design-stage carbon assessments (performed by platforms like One Click LCA) and actual procurement decisions made during construction. The company's platform tracks material orders, delivery tickets, and supplier EPDs in real-time during construction, comparing as-built carbon performance against design-stage targets. Early pilots with Multiplex and Mace in the UK demonstrated that as-built embodied carbon frequently deviated from design estimates by 15 to 30 percent, primarily due to material substitutions made during procurement for cost or availability reasons. By 2025, Tangible had raised approximately GBP 5 million in seed and Series A funding and was deployed on over 50 active construction sites. The company's enterprise scaling challenge involved integrating with construction procurement systems (Oracle Aconex, Procore, Fieldwire) that vary significantly across contractors and geographies.

Morta (Preoptima): AI for concept-stage carbon modeling. Morta, rebranded from Preoptima in 2024, addresses the problem that most embodied carbon tools require detailed BIM models that do not exist during concept design, precisely when the highest-impact decisions about structural systems, material palettes, and building form are made. The company's generative AI platform allows architects to input basic parameters (building type, floor area, number of stories, location) and receive probabilistic embodied carbon estimates within minutes. Early validation with HOK, Grimshaw, and BDP showed that concept-stage carbon modeling shifted material decisions on approximately 40 percent of projects where it was used (Morta, 2025). The company raised $3.5 million in pre-seed and seed funding by 2025, with scaling challenges focused on training AI models across sufficient project types and geographies to provide reliable estimates for the full range of building typologies.

Action Checklist

• Require whole-life carbon assessments at concept design stage using automated platforms rather than waiting for detailed design to begin measurement.
• Mandate EPD-based procurement specifications for all structural materials (concrete, steel, timber) and integrate EPD comparison tools into standard tender evaluation processes.
• Set project-level embodied carbon budgets aligned with published benchmarks (RIBA 2030, Carbon Leadership Forum, or LETI targets) and track performance at each design gate.
• Integrate embodied carbon assessment tools directly with BIM workflows to enable iterative optimization and avoid manual data transfer errors.
• Establish procurement tracking systems that compare as-built material carbon against design-stage targets, closing the gap between modeled and actual performance.
• Include embodied carbon reduction targets in supplier contracts and weight carbon performance at a minimum of 10 to 15 percent in procurement scoring.
• Monitor regulatory developments across key jurisdictions (EU CSRD, California Buy Clean, GLA planning requirements) and prepare disclosure processes for mandatory reporting.
• Invest in training for design and procurement teams on embodied carbon measurement tools, EPD interpretation, and material substitution strategies.

FAQ

What is embodied carbon in construction and why does it matter for compliance? Embodied carbon refers to the greenhouse gas emissions associated with manufacturing, transporting, installing, maintaining, and disposing of building materials. It matters for compliance because regulations including the EU CSRD, California Buy Clean Act, and GLA planning requirements increasingly mandate measurement and disclosure of these emissions. For new high-performance buildings, embodied carbon can represent 50 percent or more of total lifecycle emissions (UNEP, 2024), making it impossible to achieve meaningful decarbonization without addressing material choices.

How do startups in this space typically achieve product-market fit? Successful embodied carbon startups typically find initial traction by solving a specific pain point for a narrow customer segment. One Click LCA started by automating manual LCA processes for Nordic consultants. Building Transparency created free EPD access for cost-conscious practitioners. Tangible addressed the design-to-procurement gap for UK contractors. In each case, the company expanded into adjacent customer segments and geographies only after achieving strong retention in its initial market.

What are the biggest barriers to scaling an embodied carbon platform globally? The three primary barriers are data coverage (fewer than 30 percent of products have EPDs), regulatory fragmentation (different LCA standards and EPD formats across jurisdictions), and workflow integration (connecting with the diverse BIM and procurement software ecosystems used across global construction markets). Companies that solve all three simultaneously can build significant competitive moats.

How much does it cost to implement portfolio-wide embodied carbon tracking? Enterprise platform licensing typically ranges from $50,000 to $250,000 annually depending on portfolio size, number of users, and integration requirements. Additional costs include staff training (2 to 5 days per team member), BIM workflow configuration ($10,000 to $50,000 per platform), and ongoing data management. Total first-year implementation costs for a mid-size developer (10 to 30 active projects) generally fall between $150,000 and $400,000, with costs declining in subsequent years as processes mature.

Are embodied carbon calculations reliable enough for regulatory compliance? When based on project-specific EPDs from actual suppliers, calculations are sufficiently accurate for current regulatory requirements. Generic or industry-average data introduces uncertainty of 30 to 50 percent at the individual product level, though portfolio-level aggregation reduces this variance. Third-party verification of calculations using tools aligned with EN 15978 or ISO 21931 standards provides the audit trail necessary for CSRD and SEC disclosure compliance.

Sources

• UNEP. (2024). 2024 Global Status Report for Buildings and Construction. United Nations Environment Programme.
• Carbon Leadership Forum. (2025). Embodied Carbon Benchmark Study: US Commercial Office Buildings. University of Washington.
• Building Transparency. (2025). EC3 Database Annual Report: EPD Coverage, Data Quality, and User Growth Trends. Building Transparency.
• One Click LCA. (2025). Platform Impact Report: Global Deployment, Integration, and Carbon Reduction Outcomes. One Click LCA Ltd.
• RIBA. (2025). RIBA 2030 Climate Challenge: Updated Embodied Carbon Targets for Commercial Buildings. Royal Institute of British Architects.
• Morta. (2025). Concept-Stage Carbon Modeling: Validation Results Across 200+ Projects. Morta Technologies Ltd.
• Holcim. (2025). ECOPact Low-Carbon Concrete: Market Adoption and Environmental Product Declaration Data. Holcim Group.