A platform that will provide and promote a range of environmental data for construction products is being developed by French business Vizcab.
The platform, known as Filtr, will automate the generation of environmental product declaration sheets, and propose a score to provide transparency on the environmental impact of products “much like the warning labels on food in supermarkets that tell you if a sandwich is high in fats,” according to Vizcab. The platform is expected to launch at the end of this year.
Being able to accurately calculate embodied carbon will have a radical impact on the approach and strategies of developers, investors and policy makers, who up until now have most likely been miscalculating the embodied carbon of their portfolios, Vizcab said. It will provide companies with a much more robust way of analysing performance and making decisions.
The Lyon-based business, founded in 2015, already counts French construction giant Vinci as one of its clients.
Vizcab co-founder and co-CEO Thomas Jusselme said: “Today we do not even know 1% of the environmental impact of the construction products we use. Filtr will be the first technological solution on the market to massify the production of environmental declarations, create a score to give transparency on the impact of products, and finally ensure the referencing of these products within the same platform.”
Vizcab has received EUR1.2m (£1m) in funding from Banque des Territoires and Europe’s largest proptech VC, A/O PropTech.
Othmane Zrikem, chief data officer at A/O PropTech, said: “Without comprehensive data, those trying to reduce their carbon emissions are doing so blindfolded. To ignore the embodied carbon stemming from a building’s construction materials is to ignore up to 40% of its total emissions. Vizcab’s Filtr product has the potential to transform our approach to calculating carbon: by accurately determining the environmental impact of every construction product in a whole life cycle assessment and packaging this information in an intuitive digital platform, it gives architects, engineers, developers and policymakers alike the tools they need to start cutting carbon emissions in the right places.”
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