SEATTLE—Building Transparency, a nonprofit organization that provides open-access data and tools to foster a better building future, today announces the launch of the beta version of its latest tool, Tally Climate Action Tool (tallyCAT), which is keenly focused on carbon reductions. Developed in collaboration with Perkins&Will and C-Change Labs and funded by the Province of British Columbia, this free and open-access tool provides the data necessary to prioritize low-carbon products and make environmentally responsible decisions early, swiftly, and confidently – all while working within Revit, a building information modeling (BIM) software.
tallyCAT beta marks an important milestone for the building and construction industry as it is being launched at a time when attention to embodied carbon reduction is a growing priority. The tool provides designers with real-time information on material performance and carbon impacts via direct access to the Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator’s (EC3’s) global database of Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) – the primary pathway for manufacturers to communicate the environmental impacts of their products. It will also integrate directly into Revit, saving designers time and allowing them to scale up.
“Our team at Building Transparency is hyper-focused on providing the tools and resources needed to help the built environment industry understand, measure, and reduce its embodied carbon emissions,” said Stacy Smedley, Executive Director at Building Transparency. “The tallyCAT beta tool is another step for us in providing a robust ecosystem of tools to enable action and the prioritization of low-carbon design and procurement decisions. With this new tool, we’re able to meet designers where they are in Revit and provide the data necessary to drive green specification and procurement.”
Development & Support of tallyCAT
The development of tallyCAT beta is made possible through a partnership between Building Transparency Canada, Perkins&Will, and C-Change Labs, who are focused on driving carbon reductions in the industry. This group of innovators was awarded a $460,000 grant from the Province of British Columbia’s 2021 CleanBC Building Innovation Fund to bolster development of this project.
The tallyCAT team aims to ignite widespread change in the building, design, and construction sectors. “We are co-developing tallyCAT with the aspiration of bringing low-carbon product selection into the design process, developing data-informed workflows that can become integral to every project,” said Jesce Walz, a designer and carbon leader at Perkins&Will. “Our team is focused on leveraging the power of open access tools and collaborative partnerships to improve our industry’s environmental impacts.”