Building Transparency opened a public beta of EC3 2.0 on Oct. 20, a ground-up rebuild of the free embodied carbon database that a lot of low-carbon specs and supplier comparisons now lean on. The catch for anyone hoping to use it on a live bid: the beta covers one tool, Find & Compare Materials. Everything else arrives in phases, with no dates attached.
The Seattle nonprofit announced the release the morning Greenbuild opened in New York City. It’s running demos at Autodesk’s booth through Oct. 23, and executive director Alison Kinn Bennett spoke Tuesday at the show’s low embodied carbon materials summit.
What’s in the EC3 2.0 beta
The database behind it is big. Building Transparency counts more than 250,000 environmental product declarations across 200-plus material categories, from more than 2,000 manufacturers in over 80 countries. It says 70,000 registered users have built more than 19,000 projects in the tool.
The rebuild promises new data types, AI-assisted data ingestion and quality checks, clearer data-quality indicators, wider international coverage, modernized Find & Compare and Project Planner tools, and more software integrations. Only the search-and-compare piece is live today. It’s open to anyone who registers.
A membership program launches alongside the beta. Core tools stay free. Members get premium features, a say in the roadmap and access to forums and member insights. Building Transparency hasn’t published what membership costs.
Who’s paying for the embodied carbon database
A ClimateWorks Foundation grant funds the 2.0 work, with more money from Amazon and Google. Separately, the Autodesk Foundation is paying for a pilot of the Open Data for Climate Initiative (ODCi), which aims to publish verified background datasets for cement, ready-mix concrete, timber and steel sections. ODCi’s partners include Europe’s ECO Platform and the University of Washington Life Cycle Lab, and verified sets are meant to flow into EC3.
The endorsements in the release come from the supply chain. Skanska national carbon manager Mark Chen called the new interface “more intuitive.” Heidelberg Materials’ Shane Mulligan said reliable, comparable EPD data is “the foundation for every low-carbon decision our customers make.” BuiltCold CEO Taylor Linnell said every government Buy Clean program his firm supports runs on open EPD data.
Why EPD data quality is the part to watch
EC3 is only as good as the declarations it holds, which is why the promised quality indicators may matter more than the new interface. EPDs vary in age, scope and background data. Earlier this month NRMCA put out Version 4 of its industry-wide concrete EPD, covering 1,238 plants and built on 2023 and 2024 production. Industry averages and plant-specific declarations often sit side by side in comparison tools, and an estimator weighing two mixes doesn’t always know which is which. Building Transparency hasn’t said how the new flags will grade that.
For contractors on public work, the rollout schedule is the practical issue. A rebuild that lands piece by piece means project teams will probably run old and new versions in parallel for a while. The milestone that counts is Project Planner moving to 2.0, since that’s the tool a job’s carbon reporting actually runs through.