Bentley Systems the infrastructure engineering software company is pleased to announce the availability of new carbon assessment capabilities in iTwin Experience. This development will enable infrastructure professionals to seamlessly quantify carbon reduction opportunities in their projects.
The announcement was made at the Environment Analyst Global Business Summit, which is taking place on June 27 and 28 in Chicago.With these new capabilities, infrastructure professionals can now fully automate embodied carbon calculation reports and impact analyses. By leveraging iTwin Experience, they can explore multiple design choices faster and eliminate the need for manual data exports and normalization. This streamlined process will save valuable time and enhance efficiency.
In 2022, Bentley Systems developed an integration service in the iTwin Platform to automate the generation of embodied carbon reports for infrastructure projects via One Click LCA and EC3. This integration allowed reports to be initiated using the iTwin Platform and viewed in One Click LCA or EC3. Now, iTwin Experience offers a ready-to-go, bi-directional integration with EC3. This integration enables carbon assessments to be visualized in a digital twin without the requirement of writing any code. iTwin Experience exports a data model to EC3, a free tool that users need to register for separately. EC3 performs the embodied carbon calculations and returns results that iTwin Experience seamlessly reads and visualizes.
The newly available carbon calculation capabilities in iTwin Experience will benefit organizations that want to include carbon assessment workflows in their infrastructure projects without developing proprietary iTwin-powered apps. Additionally, these capabilities unlock the integration of carbon assessment workflows with other Bentley products and solutions for designing and managing infrastructure projects.
It’s important to note that the capabilities are currently being released in Preview and will be available for a restricted number of partners and early adopters.
Kaustubh Page, Director of Product Management with Bentley Systems, expressed the significance of these new capabilities by stating, “Lifecycle assessments, environmental footprint analyses, and reports are becoming standard requirements for infrastructure projects worldwide. Designers and environmental engineers spend critical time generating environmental assessments or reports. Because the required data needed to be manually exported from multiple design authoring tools and then aggregated and verified, generating these environmental assessments has been a time-consuming and potentially error-prone process. With these new capabilities built into iTwin Experience, it is feasible to transform what is typically a six-month process into a six-minute workflow. Our goal is for iTwin Experience users to spend their valuable time on designing, optimizing, and making better decisions, faster – not exporting, aggregating, and validating data.”
Rodrigo Fernandes, Director of ES(D)G with Bentley Systems, emphasized the company’s vision of enabling users to implement carbon analysis and optimization as a natural, repeatable, and standardized procedure for managing all types of infrastructure projects worldwide. Fernandes highlighted that integrating carbon assessment early in a project presents significant carbon reduction opportunities. While the announcement focuses on embodied carbon, which is particularly relevant in the early project stages, iTwin Experience has the potential to unleash opportunities for comprehensive environmental footprint assessments powered by infrastructure digital twins.
Mark Tablante, Design Technology Director with Burns & MacDonnell, shared his positive experience working with Bentley Systems. Tablante mentioned that electrification is a critical component in meeting the world’s decarbonization goals. He expressed the importance of tracking and reporting progress toward utilities’ net-zero goals and commended Bentley for developing iTwin-powered carbon reporting capabilities for the electric utility industry. Tablante looks forward to integrating these services and continuing to help clients track carbon and achieve their net-zero goals.
This announcement marks a significant milestone in the field of carbon assessment for infrastructure projects. Bentley Systems is paving the way for more efficient and standardized procedures, allowing professionals to make better decisions faster and contribute to a greener future. Stay tuned for further updates on this exciting development.
