Munich-based Emidat, a prominent supplier of construction decarbonization and environmental data solutions for the building sector, has secured €4 million in a seed fundraising round.
The round was led by General Catalyst. With this funding, Emidat will be able to assist the construction sector in lowering the built environment’s environmental impact, beginning with a revolution in the way all building materials are labeled.
Emidat is developing the operating system for environmental data in construction as the EU implements mandatory rules for building product declarations the following month. Product labels known as Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) include information about the material’s effects on the environment at every stage of the product life cycle, including manufacturing, construction, operation, and the possibility of recovery, recycling, or reuse. By using them, contractors, architects, and project developers can make well-informed choices regarding every material used in a project.
39% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide are attributable to the building and real estate industry, with embodied carbon—emissions from the production, transportation, installation, upkeep, and disposal of building materials—accounting for more than half of the total. The impact of embedded carbon is growing even as modern buildings become more energy efficient; in 2021, it accounted for 11% (4.48 billion t CO2e) of all worldwide GHG emissions. Additionally, over the next 40 years, builders will add an estimated 2.4 trillion square feet (230 billion square meters) of new floor space worldwide—equal to constructing a new New York City every month for 40 years.
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EPD creation is now an expensive, disjointed, and time-consuming process for a sector that has been sluggish to digitize. Based on the cost of creating a verified certificate for 500,000 building items, the European market may be worth at least €5 billion annually. Manufacturers aim to publish 25 times more EPDs than the current number.
Construction must monitor and cut embodied carbon quickly to meet the EU’s goal of net zero by 2050. The data layer that makes it happen is provided by Emidat, which integrates with current workflows and accepts data via Excel, BIM, or API. The database, which is accessible through an API and user interface, contains environmental data on more than 150k building materials.
Statements:
Lisa Oberaigner, co-founder and CEO of Emidat, stated:
“Buildings are the foundation of all productive economies; they are where we live, work, and study. Construction still has a significant and detrimental impact on our world, even as we make progress in decarbonizing the energy sector. There is a great chance to lessen the impact of this industry because 75% of the buildings we will use in 2050 have not yet been constructed. We can contribute to the decarbonization of the sector and the development of a more sustainable built environment by making environmental data open and easily available.”
Samuel Beyer, Investor at General Catalyst, said:
“We see Emidat as a turnkey solution for decarbonizing the mission-critical built environment from the ground up; it will increasingly function as a collaborative platform where the industry can collectively access and exchange material data. We think this will accelerate value chain efficiency and industry transformation.”
Emidat collaborates with some of Europe’s top producers of building materials, including businesses in the steel, facade, insulation, and concrete sectors. Customers say that the platform’s built-in AI has reduced the time and expense of creating EPDs by more than 70% while also saving them time on data collection and text writing. Emidat will be able to grow its team, speed up product development, and expand its platform thanks to the investment from General Catalyst.
