kgCO₂e on every rate. Citations on every roll-up.
A1-A3 cradle-to-gate carbon lives on the product, decomposes through assemblies, and rolls up to the bill — every figure carries its source, version and RICS WLCA data-quality tier. Compare bids on price and carbon, defensibly.
Reductions per MPA Fact Sheet 18; CEM I 0.912 → CEM III/B 0.260 kgCO₂e/kg.
Carbon factors live on the product — same as price.
When a price sheet comes in, each new product is matched to an A1-A3 factor via embedding shortlist + AI picker at confidence ≥ 0.7. The source and version travel with the factor; manufacturer EPDs override the generic.
Import the price
Invoice, PDF or price sheet — the import pipeline auto-creates the product.
Auto-link a factor
Embedding shortlist against MPA, CARES, BCSA, ÖKOBAUDAT 2024-I. AI picks at ≥ 0.7 confidence.
Override with an EPD
Drop in a manufacturer EPD and it replaces the generic factor — citation captured automatically.
It carries through
Source + version + RICS WLCA tier stick to the product. Every rate, assembly and bill inherits both.
Four Tier-1 sources, shipped with the app — overridable by your EPDs.
The factor library is auto-linked at import. You don't have to seed anything to get a carbon column on day one — but the moment you hold a manufacturer EPD, it takes precedence and the citation switches accordingly.
- MPA Fact Sheet 18 — UK cement & concrete sector averages, including CEM I / II / III variants.
- CARES UK average — reinforcing steel, weighted by UK production.
- BCSA — fabricated structural steel.
- ÖKOBAUDAT 2024-I — concrete, plasterboard, mineral wool, timber, glass and blockwork.
- Manufacturer EPDs override generic factors at any time. Tenants can also pin a custom factor with a citation.
Built rates decompose carbon the same way they decompose cost.
Each component product carries its own A1-A3 factor; an assembly's kgCO₂e is the sum across components. Swap a component — say CEM I for CEM III/B — and the assembly total falls through automatically, with citations following each component.
- Component-level provenance. Every line in the assembly carries its factor source and version — the aggregate is defensible, not a black box.
- Parametric scaling. Carbon scales with the same variables as cost — block thickness, perimeter ratios, coverage rates.
- Component swaps recost & recarbon together. See the cost delta and the kgCO₂e delta in the same view before you commit.
More on assemblies → parametric built rates.
Spec-permitted substitutions, surfaced before you award.
Spec intelligence cross-checks bills against the spec and flags spec-compliant low-carbon alternatives — never invents a factor that isn't in your library. Each suggestion shows the kgCO₂e delta, cost delta and the spec clause that permits it.
CEM I → CEM III/B (BS 8500)
0.912 → 0.260 kgCO₂e/kg — a ~71% reduction on cement. Permitted under BS 8500 for most exposure classes; the swap flags the clause and pulls the factor from MPA Fact Sheet 18.
GGBS & PFA blends
Cement replacement with ground-granulated blastfurnace slag or pulverised fly ash. Suggested when the spec permits S/T classes; factors cited to ÖKOBAUDAT and ICE.
FSC C24 KD timber stud
Where the spec allows non-metal framing, e.g. swapping 70S50 Gypframe C-studs to FSC C24 kiln-dried timber studs. Carbon delta and cost delta priced from your library, citation captured.
Recycled-content steel
EAF-route structural sections where a manufacturer EPD is on file. Factor swaps in automatically; coverage flag travels with the bill row.
Level on price and carbon — in the same table.
Subs that priced in Blueprint Crusher return a kgCO₂e column per category with source citations. The leveler lines every quote up against your bill: best price per row is highlighted, exclusions and outliers flagged, and carbon coverage shown alongside. Award with a defensible total — figures and citations follow the award into the package and ESG/planning-condition reports.
- Carbon coverage scoring. What each sub covered, what they excluded, how complete their carbon data is.
- Mix line items for best-of-breed. Award concrete to sub A, steel to sub B — total cost and total carbon update live.
- Audit trail. Every awarded figure exports with its source, version and tier — ESG and planning-condition reports come straight out of the data.
More on procurement → main contractor leveling & award.
RICS WLCA-tiered, A1-A3 cradle-to-gate.
Every factor is tagged with its RICS Whole Life Carbon Assessment data-quality tier so reviewers can see, at a glance, how much of a project's total sits on generic vs. manufacturer-specific data.
Tier — Generic
Industry or regional averages. Useful early in design and where no better data exists. Default fallback when no sector or manufacturer source is available.
Tier — Sector
Trade-body or sector-average EPDs — MPA, CARES, BCSA. Stronger evidence than generic, applicable to a UK-specific supply chain.
Tier — Manufacturer EPD
Product-specific EPDs from named manufacturers. The strongest evidence available; overrides generic and sector factors when present.
Scope & boundary
A1-A3 (raw materials, transport to factory, manufacturing). Out of scope: A4 transport, A5 construction, B-use, C-end-of-life — we'll surface these as the standards evolve.
Defensible for EPBD whole-life carbon — from 2028.
The revised Energy Performance of Buildings Directive brings life-cycle GWP reporting into scope for new buildings from 2028 (large) and 2030 (all). Planning conditions in the UK and Ireland are already asking for kgCO₂e on awarded packages today. Blueprint Crusher's exports carry the carbon column, the factor source, the version and the RICS tier — ready to drop into a WLCA submission or a planning return.
- Per-line citations on every export — no spreadsheet stitching at the deadline.
- Coverage % at the bill and category level — reviewers see immediately where data is thin.
- Versioned factors — re-run a closed bill against today's library and see the delta.
Hosted on one of Europe's greenest clouds.
Estimating workloads are spiky — vector search, document OCR, agentic loops. We run them on Scaleway's PAR2 / DC5 in Paris, engineered for low energy and water use from the ground up.
A data center that uses 30–50% less energy than the industry average.
Compute, storage and AI workloads sit inside Scaleway's DC5 facility, designed without traditional water-based chillers. It cools racks using outside air and adiabatic cooling, draws power from wind and hydro under Guarantees of Origin, and reports its own footprint annually.
- No water-cooled chillers in DC5. Free cooling with outside air and adiabatic stages — using roughly an order of magnitude less water than a conventionally-cooled hyperscaler facility.
- SBTi-aligned reduction path. Our host is committed to the Iliad Group's SBTi-validated target: a 90% cut to scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions by 2050 vs. a 2022 baseline.
- Hardware kept in service longer. Servers and drives are reconditioned and reissued — not landfilled. ~15,000 servers and 12,000+ drives were given a second life in 2024 alone.
- Auditable footprint, on request. If your client or ESG team needs per-project kgCO₂e for the platform, we can pull it from Scaleway's Environmental Footprint Calculator.
Put a defensible carbon column on every bid.
kgCO₂e auto-linked at import. Citations on every roll-up. Carbon and cost, side by side, from rate library to award.