Innovate UK has granted approximately £1m ($1.26m) to a consortium led by Morgan Sindall Construction to further the development of Sindall's CarboniCa tool. 

CarboniCa is an existing and proven whole-life carbon measurement tool launched by Sindall in 2021. 

The consortium comprises Sindall, Nottingham Trent University, and software company ConstructSys. 

The solution is said to have been used in more than 100 large building projects annually since its inception and has contributed to the reduction of over 30,000 tonnes (t) in carbon emissions. 

Specifically, Sindall’s project team used CarboniCa to identify the number of possible carbon savings for the Buntingford First School project, helping it save 358t of carbon. 

The Innovate UK grant, amounting to £947,000, will cover a majority of the research and development costs of the tool, which total £1.418m.  

The grant is aimed at developing advanced algorithms that automate data collection and evaluation for whole-life carbon assessments (WLCAs), enhancing decision-making and productivity. 

By integrating AI, the enhanced system is expected to quicken the creation of WLCAs by up to 85%.  

This improvement is anticipated to set the stage for the broader adoption of WLCAs in the construction sector, aligning with the UK's carbon reduction targets. 

Sindall Social Value & Sustainability director Tim Clement said: “We have an established and highly effective working relationship with our research and development partners at Nottingham Trent and ConstructSys respectively.

"Our next step is building a cutting-edge AI engine into a state-of-the-art system that drastically reduces the time taken to produce an accurate WLCA."