Optimise embodied carbon in the earliest phase of design

Carbon Designer 3D can be used anywhere in the world, for any building type and it supports nearly all of One Click LCA’s compliance modules, so it can be used for regulatory and certification needs. Localized versions of Carbon Designer 3D offer tailored typical building scenarios for the relevant area and currently include Ireland, Germany (using Okobau data) and Hungary, with more to come.

The template functionality allows users to add custom company templates in Carbon Designer 3D in order to create more customized scenarios for different regions or specific material types, building parts or construction practices. 

• Improved structural calculations – therefore higher accuracy.
• User experience improvements to speed up your workflow: User-friendly search.
• Ability to add any material and structure from across One Click LCA’s extensive database, rather than just choosing from pre-listed ones.
• Simplified design creation process.
• Ability to switch between different structure types.
• Ability to access the full details of every design you compare, including specific materials and composite elements.
• Unlimited designs and ability to compare four at a time.
• Baseline functionality improvements: Any design can be set as a baseline.
• Ability to create and save custom reference templates and private data for use across your company in current and future projects.
• Ability to create a reference building for a new region or country that does not yet have one.
• Ability to limit templates to specific building parts or specific energy consumption scenarios – to focus on the areas you need.
• You have the flexibility to change the baseline scenarios used for comparisons and can see the full details of every design to identify where the regional impacts are coming from and edit directly.
• Advanced visualization  
• Having a 3D model helps users understand what the reference building looks like and to understand where impacts come from.
• More visualizations – including graphs showing results by material, element, classification (eg RICS and others).
• Project-based tool, rather than design-based. You can upload as many designs as you wish and have the flexibility to save and manage your data as you wish. 

Yes — and it’s one of the most effective strategies in low-carbon construction. Decisions made at the concept stage — such as structural system, material palette, and form — can lock in over half of a building’s embodied emissions.

By using Carbon Designer 3D at this early stage, you can compare design scenarios and quantify their carbon impacts long before detailed drawings or specifications are available. This empowers your team to make informed, low-carbon choices when they’re most affordable and feasible to implement.

Industry evidence shows early-stage carbon optimisation can cut embodied emissions by up to 50%. Carbon Designer 3D enables this by modelling different design paths — such as concrete vs. timber frame, or varying facade treatments — with instant feedback. The result is not only lower emissions, but fewer costly revisions downstream.

Early design is the carbon leverage point — and Carbon Designer 3D is purpose-built to help you use it wisely.

Yes — Carbon Designer 3D is globally applicable and regionally adaptable. It includes baseline data for 15+ regions, including the UK, Ireland, Europe, North America, and beyond. These templates reflect local construction norms — a UK office building, for example, uses different materials than a baseline US design.

If your exact location isn’t represented, you can use the nearest template or create your own by adjusting materials and quantities. The tool works for most common building types — commercial, residential, schools, logistics hubs, and more — and supports early-stage compliance with schemes like BREEAM, LEED, DGNB, and others.

Carbon Designer 3D is built for buildings (vertical construction). While infrastructure use (roads, bridges) is not yet supported, the tool provides broad flexibility for nearly all standard building typologies.

Yes — Carbon Designer 3D is well-suited for meeting early-stage carbon reporting requirements under policies such as the London Plan’s Whole Life-Cycle Carbon (WLC) Assessment guidance. The tool enables UK design teams to model embodied carbon from concept stage using UK-specific data, structural assumptions, and life-cycle boundaries that align with GLA guidance.

You can create multiple low-carbon design scenarios quickly and generate output that helps demonstrate early carbon reduction intent — a key requirement in WLC submissions. While final reporting is typically completed using detailed LCAs, Carbon Designer 3D plays a critical role in shaping compliant designs from the outset, helping you avoid costly rework later.