Nominee
C-Up: An open access tool for estimating carbon uptake of use and end-of-life of concrete
Category
Innovative Product or Service
Description
The C-Up tool developed at MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub is the only context-sensitive tool that is able to calculate the carbon uptake during the use and end-of-life phases of the concrete life cycle. Using C-Up, users are able to estimate the amount of carbon uptake during the use phase considering the geometry, climate condition, and binder composition of the mixtures. Simultaneously, users are able to evaluate the amount of carbon uptake after the concrete demolition, where the concrete is recycled and stockpiled, considering similar assumptions for the binder composition and climate conditions while considering different grading sizes. More importantly, users can define the concrete stockpile shape to have a precise representation of the exposed and carbonatable surface area to simulate the concrete uptake through its life cycle. Open-source and open-access features of this tool provide an opportunity for manufacturers and researchers to adapt the input numbers and assumptions using their site-specific data.
Please visit the following link to access the tool: https://cshub.mit.edu/whole-life-cycle-carbon-uptake-tool/
Evidence
The developed tool can be used as a basis for the net GHG estimation of the concrete life cycle. The development of such a unique model and the tool created based on that benefits a range of stakeholders in different manners to achieve GHG saving for concrete applications. From a manufacturer's perspective, the net GHG emissions of producing recycled crushed concrete can be determined and accounted for in their facility-specific assessment. The C-Up tool has been cited as a method of uptake calculation in the recently drafted product category rules for aggregates in order to enable the environmental product declaration users to calculate a precise carbon uptake at the end of life. Given a simplified accounting method in different standards (e.g., EN 16575 suggests using a single constant value as an estimation of end-of-life (EoL) uptake), the developed model can be used as a reference in these documents to capture the EoL uptake in concrete precisely. Finally, the proposed method can be implemented in the life cycle assessment models that quantify the environmental performance of buildings and infrastructure systems.
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