As an industry, we are constantly improving our methods of measuring embodied carbon on projects. What we collectively fail to address however, is the substantial impact that the construction industry has on the environment through the extraction of raw materials in the first place. With structured material information, we can empower the industry to make better decisions on material reuse and minimise the impact of new build projects on the environment.

Our research looked at methods of developing material passports through the extraction of rich datasets from a BIM environment. This was then integrated with Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) data from the supply chain and centralised on a user-friendly platform. This accessible data aims to provide the building end user with the confidence to reuse building materials throughout the life of the building (and beyond) and disrupt the current industry culture of sending end-of-life materials to landfill.