Developed by the Athena Sustainable Materials Institute, the Impact Estimator for Building is a software application that helps building professionals better understand and reduce the environmental footprint of buildings over their entire life cycle.
Users can calculate the environmental impact of more than 1,200 structural and envelope assembly combinations and can make multiple comparisons at once. Region-specific factors like electricity grids, transportation modes and distances, and product manufacturing technologies are automatically applied based on the building’s location. Design teams can change and substitute materials for helpful side-by-side comparisons—and quickly generate reports, graphs, tables, summary measures and bills of materials with just a few clicks.
Impact Estimator for Buildings Version 5.5.01 includes several useful updates including:
- integration of new BC wood product data, reflecting the latest in regional LCA studies
- incorporation of BC statistics related to wood end-of-life destination and landfill dynamics
- enhanced data harmonization that improves the accuracy of side-by-side comparisons.