Join us at the offices of Goody Clancy for an in-person gathering (coffee, juice, fruit, pastries) and live demonstration of the amazing new easy to use carbon evaluation tool.

The CARE (Carbon Avoided Retrofit Estimator) Tool is a new online tool to evaluate decisions about building reuse or replacement. It empowers owners, developers, and design teams with the ability to quantify the carbon value of reuse decisions. Retrofitting an existing building to zero operating emissions will almost always be the lowest carbon option. But what if you can only reduce its operating emissions by 50%, or plan to replace it with a zero-operating-emissions building? And how do climate zones, current and future grid intensity, and the condition of the existing building affect those considerations?

The CARE Tool estimates the avoided operational and embodied carbon emissions associated with reusing and upgrading a building or replacing it with new construction. Outputs are visualized as total embodied and operational emissions over a specified time frame as well as cumulative emissions over time, for three scenarios: leaving the existing building alone, renovating the building, or replacing it with a new building. Results can be compared to determine the lowest total-carbon approach and the time frame in which that occurs.

The CARE Tool can be used by policymakers, planners, building owners, developers, heritage building officers, architects, educators, and others who are interested in a pre- or early-design, high-level assessment of the total emissions impact of building reuse versus replacement. With retrofits on the rise and the urgent need for climate action, tools like CARE fill a critical gap in our understanding and valuation of the existing building stock as an important climate asset.