The UK’s innovation agency has awarded a grant to a group led by Morgan Sindall to improve the contractor’s whole-life carbon measurement tool, CarboniCa.
Innovate UK granted £947,000 against the research and development costs of £1,418,000.
Morgan Sindall is working with Nottingham Trent University and Warrington-based software company ConstructSys to develop novel algorithms for CarboniCa to automate the process of data collection and evaluation in whole-life carbon assessments.
This, in turn, will support people in decision-making, which speeds up the process and achieves productivity gains.
Morgan Sindall launched CarboniCa in 2021. The contractor said the tool is already being used in over 100 large building projects each year and has saved over 30,000 tonnes of carbon to date.
The importance of whole-life carbon assessments
Whole-life carbon assessments combine carbon measures for day-to-day occupancy with those for embodied emissions from materials and energy used to produce and assemble materials in construction and over the life of an asset.
Using artificial intelligence, the new system will accelerate the creation of whole-life carbon assessments by as much as 85%. The significant time and carbon savings will, in turn, pave the way towards much higher levels of whole-life carbon assessment adoption in construction and help the UK meet its net-zero targets.
Amin Al-Habaibeh, professor of intelligent engineering systems at Nottingham Trent University, said: “This is a great opportunity to implement cutting-edge deep learning AI technology to enhance productivity, improve competitiveness and speed up the evaluation process of building’s carbon footprint.
“This will enable a better material selection and more optimum designs to address climate change. This collaboration with Morgan Sindall and partner organisations will bridge the gap between academic innovation and implementation and will also benefit NTU’s future AI teaching and training in a wide range of disciplines, as sustainability is at the heart of everything we do.”
