Quebec Wood Export Bureau Case Study

Quebec Wood Export Bureau (QWEB) Partners with Brainpool AI to Build ‘Carbon Fixers’, an Interactive Platform that Brings Data to Earliest Construction Design Phases.

Industry

Timber & Construction

Use-Case

Calculate carbon emissions of building designs using various materials (timber, concrete, and steel)

Challenge Domain

Data engineering and web development

Background

Quebec Wood Export Bureau (QWEB) is a non-profit organization, founded in 1996, whose mission is to promote the use of wood in North America. A key focus is the promotion of timber as a high-quality, durable, recyclable and sustainable construction material that provides a compelling solution compared to less environmentally friendly alternatives such as steel and concrete.

Concrete and steel are used as primary building materials in favour of wood despite their massive relative associated carbon emissions, because these materials are much cheaper to produce as they benefit from economies of scale with respect to their source ingredients, whereas timber must be grown from trees that take years to grow to suitable sizes.

QWEB wants to disrupt this industry default by providing a tool to help architects and designers within the construction sector understand the emissions associated with projects by comparing the carbon impact of construction materials. Together with Offside wood their mission was to increase awareness of embodied carbon footprint and make it a key deciding factor during the early phases of the project, when changes are easiest to make.

That solution is Carbon Fixers.

QWEB and Brainpool engaged in a scoping programme to define the project problem, objective, the deliverables, assessing the available data, and developing the technology strategy, specifications, project roadmap, resources, and timeline.

Brainpool worked closely with QWEB to leverage their expertise to inform the database creation and the UX/UI. Brainpool defined a scope of work for a Proof of Concept (PoC) that would validate the ability to generate accurate output.

The key steps Brainpool took in the development of the Carbon Fixers calculator were:

Build a comprehensive database of construction product categories with corresponding emission factors, using a combination of Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) as well as public and private research data sources.
Build an API layer which centralises, cleans and structures data from various sources
Build a SaaS platform which queries the database based on supplied design specifications, aggregates emissions data and calculates the carbon footprint. This application can run comparative scenario analysis across different materials

Key Benefits:

Quickly and easily compare the carbon footprint of different building designs and the materials used in their construction
Inform more sustainable design and material choices in the construction sector
Reduce the carbon emissions of construction sector, which accounts for 38% of total global energy related CO2 emissions
Guide strategies and tactics to achieve the goal of carbon-neutral by 2050

“QWEB wanted to build a tool that counters the greenwashing around non-sustainable building materials and gives architects and construction firms the data and confidence to explore timber options. Carbon Fixer is like using a mortgage calculator before going to the bank, it gives an idea of what to expect.”

Eli Gould, US Architect Liaison and Software Project Lead at QWEB

Carbon Fixers is currently in alpha testing and Brainpool is working on converting the PoC system into a fully functioning and deployable minimal viable product (MVP).

The feedback will inform the direction of future development and new features. More information can be found on this website: https://offsitewood.org/carbon-fixers/

Who we work with

Our network of 500 data scientists enables us to work across a range of industries including Finance, Healthcare, Retail, Marketing, Manufacturing, Construction and more.

What they say about us

We invited Brainpool to participate in the initial definition workshop for Fujitsu’s AI ecosystem in Europe. They really brought a level of knowledge and enthusiasm to the session. All stakeholders were thoroughly impressed with their experience in machine learning projects and their business model & agility – I would not hesitate to recommend them!

Leigh Schvartz Head of Product Innovation, Fujitsu UK

We were really impressed by the Brainpool team, they understood what we wanted to achieve and explained how to build exactly what we wanted. Brainpool.ai built a working model that was easy for us to replicate and scale

Roshan George Founder and CEO of WithCREED

We needed to classify customers and prospects based on an algorithm that included route optimisation logic. The consultant was able to frame the problem, cleanse and organise our data and plan the solution.

Arthur Goujon Digital Operations Manager, Suez Environment

The Brainpool.ai team has been instrumental in developing the CarbonFixer; they were fast and passionate and have created something very robust that we can soon launch to market.

Eli Gould US Representative at Quebec Wood Export Bureau

Their rigour and determination to use AI and ML to solve problems in order to help small business customers was second to none. Without a doubt, I will absolutely keep this mind for future endeavours and recommend Brainpool network for projects looking for cutting edge AI talent.In this we could not be happier with the partnership with Brainpool.

Ameet Benegal Director, HSBC Global Commercial Banking

We absolutely love working with the Brainpool team and would highly recommend their services to anyone with serious interest in machine learning development. We have been thoroughly impressed with their knowledge and work ethics.

Mark Sykes CTO at First Derivatives

I will definitely keep Brainpool in mind for future cooperation. It’s been a real pleasure to work with you and Brainpool team!

Vladimir Hlavka Senior Repair Services Engineer, Zebra Technologies

Are we the right partner for you?

Start our AI assessments and find out (it takes 3 minutes)

Start AI Assessments