Can we code our way to a Sustainable Future?
Watch the episode on YouTube right here!
Sustainability is another layer of complexity on top of the industry’s already heavy responsibility. It’s one more thing that Architects and Engineers have to manage. And we must look at CO2 in the same way we look at costs in the industry.
The most efficient way to do this, is by digital proficiency.
We created a podcast episode: ”Can we code our way to a Sustainable Future?” with Co-wner of LCAx, Christian Kongsgaard. Join us when we talk about how coding and sustainability might be inseparable in the future of the Construction Industry.
Christian would definitely recommend people to start learning how to code.
It’s not that you won’t be able to get a job if you can’t code, but coding is inevitable in the future of our industry. As it is right now, the universities don’t focus enough on the digitalization.
This is a huge mistake if we want to meet the goals of sustainability.
On Youtube or other free online platforms, you can find courses on coding.
LCAx is a good motivation and example of the advantages, coding gives us.
Keep reading if you want to dive into the journey of LCAx and discover how processes like this can benefit your future.
In the following article, we’ll discuss:
- What is LCAx?
- The 4 pillars of LCAx
- How coding can help us with sustainability in the future
Let’s start at the beginning…
What is LCAx?
It’s a data structure for exchanging Life Cycle Assessments between different programs.
Last spring, Christian and his co-workers started LCAx as an open source project.
This project was a result of the new regulation adopted in Denmark. A regulation requiring you to hand over your Life Cycle Assessments. As a result, Christian and his co-workers started seeing a huge amount of new programs offering to help the firms with the calculation.
Different parties using different programs, but having to work together, creates a lot of confusion in the industry.
Leaving the firms to interpret results on their own.
And that’s how the idea of LCAx started: What if they took the output from the different programs and made a common format?
LCAx created a new level of transparency and made it possible to compare results.
With LCAx:
- You standardize the information structure.
- You’re able to analyze and see the gaps across different projects.
- It makes it easier to get high quality data.
- The different stakeholders don’t have to calculate the same project over and over again.
LCAx is not only making it easier to exchange assessments between programs, but it’s an open-source program and a common language for exchanging files. An exchange, helping us on the course of sustainability.
But… how exactly does it work?
The 4 pillars of LCAx
As previously mentioned, there is already a large number of different programs.
Programs all waiting to help you calculate your Life Cycle Assessments. Instead of making one more in line of these, LCAx wanted to use what was already there.
And merge this information into an open-source program.
This way, they were not trying to replace the other programs, but rather they wanted them to cooperate.
The easiest way to explain how this works, and the specific components of LCAx, is to divide the program into 4 pillars.
The 4 pillars:
1. The data structure: A structure, making it possible to convert from other formats.
2. The conversion functionality: This is something Christian is still developing. Hopefully, the community or third parties will join in with different types of formats.
3. Validation: The program can validate your components automatically after the specifications you require.
4. The result: A sum of all the information and calculations, you have given the program. You basically have a small engine capable of calculating your information.
With these 4 pillars, you’re able to construct something new. And share the information across projects.
Is coding the future, then?
How coding can help us with sustainability in the future
Maybe you wondering… what is wrong with Excel? Why talk about coding when we already have a simple tool like Excel? A tool everyone knows and understand?
But… as you probably already know: if you only use Excel, then you can hit a wall pretty fast in your project.
Excel is a good tool, but there are limitations to it. In some of the huge projects, the program can’t work in terms of data structure. It allows you to process a certain level of information, and gives you the opportunity to understand a part of the process.
But, it will only get you so far.
Our projects, in the Construction Industry, are often too big or too complicated to handle in Excel. And it’s also wonderfully easy to make human errors in the program.
Coding is important for us because the industry is growing, and the requirements on sustainability forces us to work harder. The need for skilled personnel is also growing. At the same time, we don’t have enough people coming out of the universities to fill in the gaps.
So, we need to do more with less.
Coding is a way to do exactly this in the future because it:
- …removes many manual tasks, and save you the time you use checking Excel.
- …gets the work automated.
- …tracks and collects data.
- …creates a circular structure instead of the traditional linear structure, where you hand over the project and responsibility to the next in line. Responsibility must be on everybody’s shoulders on every stage of the project.
- …can help us create transparency in the industry.
To sum up: We need coding to help us reach the goals of sustainability. That’s why LCAx’s data structure is a good tool: It helps convert different sets of data, validates and creates results.
Construction is so much more than digging a hole: It’s data structure and information management.