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Life Cycle Assessment

is widely accepted as the best basis for comparing the environmental impact of alternative materials, components and services. In the case of buildings, material manufacturing is the most important contributor of emissions to water and land, including toxic releases. A recent US study found that construction is the sector producing the most CO2 emissions through the manufacture, transport and use of materials. A Canadian study indicates that the embodied energy in office buildings can be equivalent to more than 20 years of operating energy use, and that material selection or other design decisions can significantly reduce embodied energy. LCA is the route to document, understand and reduce such critical environmental effects.

How to Download the Free Trial Version

Our Impact Estimator software is now being distributed by Morrison Hershfield Consulting Engineers, who are working closely with us to improve and expand the software.

To proceed with downloading the free trial copy of the software at the Morrison Hershfield website, please click here here .

For more information about the relationship between the Athena Institute and Morrison Hershfield, please click here.

Trial Mode Details:

If you have installed but not registered your copy of the Impact Estimator for buildings 4.0 software, then you may continue to use the software in a trial mode for a limited number of uses. Once the limit (3 for the initial 4.0 release) has been reached, you will be asked to register and activate your copy of the software in order to continue using the software.

While using the software in trial mode, you may generate the Bill of Materials report but will not be able to generate any other reports.

If you have the "Reports" dialog open while registering your copy of the software, you will need to close it then re–open it in order to gain access to all of the reports.