June 5, 2025
To all followers of Building Transparency,
2025 was a rocky start for many in the North American community working on Climate mitigation. We were no different, but we want to assure you that Building Transparency-our mission, our tools and our impact are here to stay.
We are proudly reporting that we are strengthening and advancing our three core programs of EC3, tallyLCA, and ODCi, we are improving our abilities as a long-term partner, and are now also in future planning mode for what comes next. It has been amazing to see the outpouring of support for Building Transparency, and the acknowledgement of the role we play in the embodied carbon ecosystem for building materials.
Key data and tool update highlights from January to June 2025:
- Updates to our automatic EPD digitization platform – over 9,000 EPDs added
- Tally updates for Revit 2025 & 2026 compatibility complete – currently in review with Autodesk
- Supporting embodied carbon policy partnerships – selected with BuiltCold to develop the State of Washington Buy Clean Buy Fair database.
Through the hard work of an amazing group of board members, staff, and supporting industry advocates, we have re-focused on our core mission and are stronger and more resilient for not just what is happening today, but for our foreseeable future.
Building Transparency’s Place in the Market
For those of you that may not know Building Transparency well, we are a 501(c)3 nonprofit that provides open-access data and tools that inspire actions that positively impact our world. We support broad and swift action across the building industry in addressing embodied carbon’s role in climate change.
Formed in 2020, Building Transparency hosts, manages, and maintains the Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator (EC3) tool, which provides thousands of digitized Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) in a free, open-access database; tallyLCA, the nonprofit’s whole building life cycle assessment tool; and the Open Data Climate Initiative ODCi, a soon to be released global baseline environmental impact dataset with regional factors and data ranges for each material.
Building Transparency Tools and Initiatives
The EC3 database alone includes close to 200,000 Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs)—”nutrition labels” for products. It is the largest free and open access EPD database available. EC3’s user base includes over 50,000 people responsible for more than 12,500 building projects across 78 countries.
Staff and Leadership updates
While Building Transparency continues to be led by a world-class board (About Us – Building Transparency) we want to highlight three notable adjustments with personnel at BT.
Interim Executive Director – Don Davies, SE
don.davies@buildingtransparency.org
www.linkedin.com/in/don-davies
A co-founder of Building Transparency and our past board chair, Don is a 36 – year structural engineering leader and an industry champion for the promotion of urban density and lower-carbon construction. Don has stepped in from our board to the Interim Executive Director role, where he is leading our 2025 transition as we move to our next generation of leadership. In addition to previously being the past President of a world-class engineering practice, his prior board and non-profit experience are bringing a wealth of knowledge and experience to Building Transparencies operations, ensuring stability as we transition to our next chapter
Technical Director – Vaclav Hasik, Ph.D., LEED AP BD+C
vaclav.hasik@buildingtransparency.org
www.linkedin.com/in/vaclav-hasik
One of BT’s first hires in 2020 and a core part of delivering our tools and databases, Vaclav has been promoted to Technical Director and is now driving our internal tool maintenance, software updates, and scoping for future data and tool initiatives. A passionate advocate, problem solver, and a BT tool magician that keeps BT running smoothly, Vaclav is also working with engaged board members on scoping and planning for what comes next, including an upcoming 2026 initiative around EC3 v2.0.
Administrative Coordinator – Chris Rovner
chris.rovner@buildingtransparency.org
Chris has been an amazing addition to the Building Transparency team, who joined us in February and has quickly become an integral and important part of our behind-the-scenes operations. With a prior career in interior design and a deep understanding of the design and construction process, Chris leads our membership and account management, accounts billable and payable, and other background roles that keep Building Transparency running smoothly. She is a great talent who loves to proactively solve problems, to roll up her sleeves and to get things done, whatever that might be.
Growth of EC3 database
Despite some mis-leading messaging we have recently seen within the industry, EC3 continues to evolve and is updated daily, including over 14,000 EPDs that have been added in since October 2024. EC3 is a public-good infrastructure, hosted exclusively by the Building Transparency non-profit. It is not a proprietary or outsourced database, and its management, governance, and development are firmly moving forward by Building Transparency and not other parties. Updates to EC3 come from EPD providers pushing digitised EPDs into EC3, data from platforms like SmartEPD, NAPA, UL, SCS Global, NSF International, ASTM International, and Ecoplatform, and PDFs uploaded by users of the platform.
That said, not all data is accessible by end users immediately or at the same rate from the different sources. Any data received in PDF format is parsed by BT’s AI parser, followed by a manual review. This has been the case since EC3’s inception, but the parsing system has gone through several iterations. While we continue to grow this database through our multiple sources, if you have a third party verified EPD that you don’t see in our database, please help with EC3’s evolution! You can import PDFs to EC3 and we’ll get it added in.
EPD Growth within EC3 over Time
To help streamline the EPD import process, BT’s Technical Director, Vaclav Hasik, has written a new AI parser, replacing what was used in 2024 and earlier. This has greatly improved our ability to catch and fix EPD bugs before they go live within EC3. But even with our new and improved AI parser, we have a person review the data sets before they are posted. Our goal is to deliver the most comprehensive, bug free and accurate EPD database we can. This is an endless pursuit given the quickly changing landscape of EPDs, but EC3 is growing, evolving, and only getting better.
tallyLCA updates to launch this summer for Revit 2025 and 2026, and more!
The Kieran Timberlake (KT) team has been busy at work supporting BT with the coding for tallyLCA v1.0. An update to tallyLCA v1.0 will be launched shortly, providing compatibility with Revit 2025 and 2026 models. The programming is done and the tool is going through Autodesk review. Look for a separate announcement when this update happens. It will be made available to all current tallyLCA v1.0 license holders at no additional charge.
Separately, work toward tallyLCA v2.0 is underway and making good progress. Major goals are to keep but improve the Revit interface and output graphics, to make spreadsheet exports easier once the initial tallyLCA v2.0 model has been generated, and to lower the license cost because of a change to the background datasets being used.
Beta testing evaluations of tallyLCA v2.0 will include comparisons and alignment efforts, with explanations for where data findings vary between tallyLCA v1.0 and v2.0. Once available, tallyLCA v2.0 will be a fully separate software package from tallyLCA v1.0 due to the change in data sets. Projects started in tallyLCA v1.0 are encouraged to stay on that platform for data tracking and compatibility. Stay tuned for further updates as beta testing and launch information on tallyLCA v2.0!
ODCi
The Open Data for Climate Initiative (ODCi) strives to provide a third-party verified, free to low-cost generic (non-vendor specific) and globally relevant LCA datasets for construction materials. These LCI aligned datasets can be utilized to calculate the embodied carbon impacts of new construction work before vendor specific EPD’s are available within embodied carbon modelling tools like tallyLCA v2.0, IFC EDGE Tool, EC3, and other building LCA applications worldwide. The initial launch of ODCi is targeting the 400 most used construction materials, with a goal to grow its size with time through an open access approach that encourages collaboration and non-profit public good advancement across the industry.
Being a global dataset, the modelling will include assessing and reporting uncertainties from foreground and background data, as well as up to seven global regionally appropriate modifying factors for the materials included. The generic LCA data for construction materials will be provided in OpenImpact and International Reference Life Cycle Data System (ILCD) formats, and will be accessible via the EC3 API.
This collaboration with largely European partners at the start is primarily funded by the Laudes Foundation, with a governing board that includes the Laudes Foundation, Eco Platform, Ramboll Foundation, Meta, and Building Transparency.
While progress continues on the creation of ODCi, similar to tallyLCA v2.0, stay tuned for further updates as the data development finalization, third party verification, and launch information comes together.
In Conclusion
Building Transparency is here to stay, we are growing, and we are looking forward to our next chapter of supporting the embodied carbon ecosystem we are a part of. We hope that you continue to follow and partner with us as we build toward our future. Please reach out with any questions or concerns, and thank you for your ongoing support of Building Transparency!
Lisa Conway
Board Chair
Building Transparency
lisa.conway@buildingtransparency.org
