Grantee Research Project Results
Final Report: Levaraging AxM Software Technology to Empower Material Reuse and Embodied Carbon Reporting in the Built Environment
EPA Contract Number: 68HERC22C0026Title: Levaraging AxM Software Technology to Empower Material Reuse and Embodied Carbon Reporting in the Built Environment
Investigators: Kietzer, Daniel
Small Business: Rheaply, Inc.
EPA Contact: Richards, April
Phase: I
Project Period: December 1, 2021 through May 31, 2022
Project Amount: $93,370
RFA: Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I (2022) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)
Description:
According to the U.S. Green Building Council, the construction industry is responsible for approximately 40% of total energy use, 40% of raw materials use, 13.6% of total potable water consumption, 73% of total electricity consumption, and 38% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (USGBC, 2015). In terms of waste, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found, as of 2018, 600 million metric tons of materials were sent to landfills. With such an impactful scopet, the construction sector remains a prime target for materials reuse reform.
Research, regulatory compliance and even voluntary efforts to lower the built environment’s GHG demand have consistently and aggressively focused on managing, measuring and reporting the energy efficiency lifecycle from design through post-occupancy performance. However, energy efficiency is responsible for only one portion of a building’s GHG emissions - its operational carbon impact.
Embodied carbon – the remaining carbon impact – derives from the combined GHG emissions caused by extraction, manufacture, transportation, construction, maintenance, replacement, deconstruction, disposal, and end of life activities for the collective materials and systems that comprise a building. Annually, embodied carbon is responsible for 11% of global GHG emissions and 28% of global building sector emissions.
In partnership with the EPA, Rheaply, Inc. engaged in a SBIR Phase I effort to deploy the Rheaply platform - a web-based asset management and online marketplace to increase asset visibility, utilization, and redeployment of waste and surplus materials to empower stakeholders in the built environment to exchange reusable building materials. This SBIR Phase I proposed to go beyond typical usage of surplus materials and invest in additional features to enable the Rheaply platform to empower decarbonization efforts by reporting on estimated embodied carbon savings related to each transaction of reclaimed materials.
Material rescue and reuse epitomizes climate action for the building industry, honoring embodied carbon and upending the prevailing linear take-make-waste pattern.
- Eden Brukman, San Francisco Department of the Environment
Summary/Accomplishments (Outputs/Outcomes):
Leveraging a design thinking-based framework, the Rheaply team set about addressing research and development questions around feasibility and market fit of utilizing a software platform to promote “end to end” material lifecycle visibility and supply chain traceability of deconstructed and reclaimed materials; facilitate identification, collection, transaction and use of deconstructed/reclaimed building materials; and provide reportable embodied carbon metrics to stakeholders.
Our research yielded several important findings regarding software platform market fit despite challenges with engagement with our target user and audience. It's clear from our research and adjacent conversations with built environment professionals that both the supply and demand sides of a building material reuse marketplace need to transact with as little friction as possible. While barriers around materials data and supply-side inventory can be addressed through technology, many questions still remain around on-the-ground resources and expertise needed to execute successful transactions. This includes deconstruction expertise, and logistics enablers around transportation, storage, and installation.
We anticipate that a Phase II engagement would generate stronger insights on these crucial market dynamics if it were to be focused on facilitating actual exchanges and transactions within a predefined geographic region, which would allow our team to build an engagement plan for businesses and organizations within a defined geography that have the skills and capabilities to address these barriers.
Our research also tested several hypotheses related to materials and building products data, specifically 1) the feasibility of gathering actionable data to facilitate and encourage transactions on reusable building products and materials, 2) the feasibility of gathering data to accurately estimate embodied carbon avoided through reuse, and 3) the feasibility of gathering data to quantify the positive impact of choosing a reclaimed material versus an alternative.
Conclusions:
Key learnings and outcomes highlighted critical intervention points where Rheaply technology could be deployed in the lifecycle of a building product; the importance of data integrations, especially with Building Information Modeling software; and also included a significant overhaul of Rheaply’s on-platform federated category list to include CSI MasterFormat Divisions to more accurately categorize building materials.
The outcomes of this Phase I project will be highly beneficial to public and private sector entities looking to further scale reuse in the built environment and reduce its embodied carbon impact. Looking towards the future, these findings and outcomes also surface several areas of opportunity for further research and development on the building material reuse ecosystem, enabling business models, and leveraging materials and building products data. This project is at the start of a long-term body of work by Rheaply, and organizations interested in getting involved are encouraged to visit rheaply.com to learn more.
The perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.