NZ Embodied Carbon Database – an accessible tool

Finally, the day has come that New Zealand has an accessible carbon data repository. One that Joe Blogs can search, without being a scientist and even without creating an account. It’s actually even looking nice.

Developed by CIL Masterspec in partnership with BRANZ, NECO₂ is the only project for a national embodied carbon repository endorsed by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and is supported by the New Zealand Government.

Anyone can

To me, it is not that important that it is NZ only. It is more important that it is easy and fast and accessible to anyone.

If there was an EPD, the same data was already available via EC3, but you needed a login, needed to know the category and name. And it is more cluttered with lots of information that is all great to have, but probably too much in your face in the first instance. It’s almost NECO being the “easy mode” of EC3. 😉

You can also compare products quickly, which is great and a very important tool. After all, you want to find the best product for the purpose.

How do we stack up?

You can then jump onto EC3 – if you wanted to – and compare how the NZ product would stack up internationally and potentially discover international best practices.

Note that this is one of the dangers when only looking in your geographical region: You might miss out on international comparisons and best practices around. By gaining the additional knowledge of international research, you could lobby your national preferred manufacturer to improve.

Never forget to look at the big picture.

References:

• NECO – A public resource for environmental data on construction materials in New Zealand, empowering sustainable building decisions.
• EC3 – Welcome to the Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator (EC3) Tool.