The Finnish company Bionova aims to create a carbon neutral construction industry, where all agents cooperate to design greener and make the delivery of sustainable buildings the norm. To achieve this goal, the start-up created the software ‘One Click LCA’ to help constructors, construction companies, and authorities to measure the environmental impact of sustainable construction projects, and eco-design purposes.
The construction industry is responsible for 40% of carbon emissions globally and those emissions are accumulated through the building’s whole life-cycle. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tools can assess building materials with their respective environmental impact profiles and are necessary to design and build in an environmentally sustainable manner. However, creating an LCA is not a small task and currently there are no fast, affordable and scalable tools. An LCA study usually costs €3000-15000 and takes 40-150 hours, delaying the construction process and slowing the uptake.
Bionova, the leading construction LCA software firm in Northern Europe, has developed a software where LCA can be done at least 100x faster (with 1 click) and it costs 10x less (€250-1300). The user just needs the existing design data, and thanks to this software, he will have access to a verified and constantly updated LCA database. One Click LCA is a cloud-based sustainability software that can deliver a standardized LCA in just an hour.
“Our One Click LCA makes special knowledge redundant and gives the designers the power to do the LCA by themselves,” said Panu Pasanen, CEO of Bionova, during an interview to AEC Business. “With our automated solution, you can do the assessment in hours instead of days or weeks.”
Unlike competing solutions, this software can be tailored to the needs of the end-user. Whether he is a building professional, a manufacturer, a city council or a hotel owner — the platform will help the user to achieve sustainability goals.
Last year, One Click LCA has been selected as the winner of the Energy Globe Award for Finland. The Energy Globe Award, also called the World Awards for Sustainability or Nature’s Nobel Prize, is an annual prize granted by the Energy Globe Foundation to sustainable projects. This year, the company was at the final of the Australian Construction Awards for the Product Innovation category of the year.
Bionova has received a Phase 2 grant from the EIC SME Instrument program in March 2016. The total Phase 2 grant amount was 1.044.838 €.
DISCLAIMER: This information is provided in the interest of knowledge sharing and should not be interpreted as the official view of the European Commission, or any other organisation.