A First-of-its-Kind Solution for Climate Progress

The EC3 Tool

EC3 enables carbon smart choices during material specification and procurement. It is the only free and open-access global embodied carbon accounting tool.

Meet our Cornerstone Tool

EC3 houses building material quantities from your BIM models, construction estimates or as builts, and a robust digital third-party Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) database.

It is a free, easy-to-use tool for:

Finding and comparing building materials based on supply chain-specific EPD data.

Planning and comparing a project’s potential and realized embodied carbon emissions.

Declaring your products via EC3’s standard format for EPD data.

Auditing and verifying digital EPDs.

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Valid EPDs Hosted
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Building Projects Supported
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Registered Users in 78 Countries
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Companies with Active Tool Users

Why EC3 Matters

Until now, material suppliers have encountered various challenges regarding EPDs, including cost, slow adoption across the industry, and lack of standardization. With the launch of the EC3 tool, for the first time, thousands of digital EPDs became available in a free, open-source database. As a result, building designers, construction companies, and material suppliers can directly measure, compare, and reduce the embodied carbon of their products and projects.

The EC3 tool also allows owners, green building certification programs, and policymakers to access supply chain data to create EPD requirements and set embodied carbon limits and reductions at the construction material and project scale.

The Impact of EC3

In markets where EPD data currently exists, Building Transparency observes 30% or more reductions in carbon emissions resulting from using EC3 to select and procure low-carbon materials.

EC3 has provided critical sustainability data to several noteworthy projects.

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Microsoft’s Puget Sound Project

Microsoft – a pilot sponsor of the tool and one of its first and largest corporate users – leveraged EC3 for its Puget Sound campus modernization project, which included the construction of 17 new buildings and 2.5 million square feet of workspace. Using the tool enabled the team to reduce embodied carbon by at least 30% compared to its baseline. Now, Microsoft requires the use of EC3 across its entire building portfolio. Additionally, by utilizing EC3, it has identified opportunities to reduce concrete and steel-related emissions by 30–60% at its data centers and is on the path to achieving its net-zero embodied carbon goal.

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Amazon’s Virginia Headquarters

Amazon, another key sponsor, utilized EC3 to create a sustainable construction model for its second headquarters in Virginia. The company stipulated that the 200,000 cubic yards of concrete needed to produce 20% less carbon emissions than the industry baseline. Amazon continues to focus on reducing embodied carbon emissions and has implemented the 20% reduction rule for concrete used in data centers globally.

Integration Partners

EC3 has working integrations with top design and construction-related software to create an ecosystem of aligned and harmonized solutions.

Our free, digitally available database is also leveraged by other technology providers in the industry, enabling the carbon data of materials to be part of the decision-making process within the tools already broadly used by building professionals. Here are a few of our integration partners:

Access EC3 Today

EC3 exists to help the AEC sector reduce the climate impact of building projects. It is designed to be an easy-to-use, free tool to support outcomes and make it easy to prioritize embodied carbon action.

Building Transparency regularly shares information about the tool and answers frequently asked questions via the EC3 User Guide, which also includes information about EC3 Methodology, Uncertainty, and more.