About/FAQ
About TrueCarbon
The team behind TrueCarbon has spent the last 15 years in the green building industry working across the design, construction, operation, and certification realms. Our multi-disciplinary team includes architects, engineers, contractors, consultants, and software developers trusted by green builders and industry leaders worldwide.
The sustainability industry – and the green building industry in particular – have been tracking operational carbon in buildings for decades. More recently, the embodied carbon of a building’s materials has become an area of focus as well, as builders and owners have recognized the need to track a building’s carbon footprint through its entire life cycle (including before it is actually built).
TrueCarbon seeks to bridge the gap between these two well-known carbon tracking paradigms by focusing on the carbon impact of the construction process itself.
Watch the video below to learn more, browse our Frequently Asked Questions, or join our mailing list to receive exclusive offers and updates from the TrueCarbon team.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
General Information
Getting Started
Account Basics
Why should I use TrueCarbon?
TrueCarbon is revolutionizing corporate sustainability reporting among industry leaders, allowing them to track sustainability efforts quickly and efficiently across entire portfolios. With just a few clicks, you can easily see a summary of your organization’s overall construction activities at any given time, as well as dial into the specifics of individual projects. Major contractors and developers will now be able to provide key stakeholders with details related to the greenhouse gas emissions of their projects under construction.
Is my project a good fit for TrueCarbon?
TrueCarbon is primarily intended for tracking full-scope construction projects from the ground up. Tenant improvements and renovations in actively occupied buildings may not be as well-suited to the TrueCarbon platform. These spaces can be tracked, but for accuracy, you should ideally be able to separate out the energy, water, and waste utilized/generated by the construction process alone. If you are working in a space with shared utilities, please make sure that you have adequate submeters and other separations in place to allow for accurate tracking of the impacts of construction versus the rest of the building.
What additional features are planned for future TrueCarbon releases?
TrueCarbon evolves with the market, and we are always looking for ways to improve and become even more useful for modern contractors, owner/developers, and other stakeholders in the design and construction process.
At the moment, the following items are some (but not all) of the features planned for integration into TrueCarbon in the near future:
TrueCarbon Score Forecaster: The ability to look at future “what-if” scenarios and see the potential impact on your site or organization’s TrueCarbon Score (e.g., “What if we purchase an offset this month?” or, “What if we ran an identical project in a different location?”).
Bonus Boost Points: Optional items that individual construction sites could undertake to earn extra credit on their TrueCarbon Score (such as recording the transportation methods used by workers to reach the jobsite).
Contractor Commitments and Social Metrics: Additional tracking items that can be completed to track compliance with various industry programs such as the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals or Building Green’s Sustainable Contractor Commitment.
Certification Output Reports: The ability to export data directly into clear and usable formats ready for submission to certification bodies (such as LEED or WELL).
CSV Uploads: The ability to upload site data all at once in a simple spreadsheet format, making data input and reporting even faster
What information do I need to collect to use TrueCarbon?
At the site level, you should collect basic information about the site (name, location, planned construction schedule, and an image/rendering of the project) in order to get a site set up. Once established, you will need to commit to tracking, at a minimum, the total usage of energy and water on-site as well as the total waste generation/processing at the whole-site level. Note that all energy sources should be tracked (including, but not limited to, electricity, diesel, gasoline, and natural gas). This will generally involve collecting electric bills, invoices for raw fuels such as diesel and propane, water bills, and waste hauler tickets. Depending on how the project is set up, these bills may be paid by different parties. These key values should be updated on no less than a monthly basis. We suggest regular meetings of the key members of the design/construction/ownership team to ensure that all information is being accurately accounted for.
From there, TrueCarbon lets you to expand your tracking to be as granular as you wish. Some early partners have utilized submeters to track usage to specific elements of the construction process (such as the on-site trailer) while others have tracked their fuel energy usage by subcontractor/scope (such as the foundation team). This level of detail has allowed them to compare and evaluate construction operations to identify potential areas for improvements on future jobsites.
Note that TrueCarbon does not require any information related to the cost of the energy/water/waste at your jobsite.
At the organization/corporate level, you just need to have basic organizational information (name, headquarters location, company logo) to get started, and a list of the sites you want to track!
Download our data requirements one-pager here – you can share this with owners, partners, and other stakeholders to help coordinate your registration process.
Why can’t I create a new organization?
If you are receiving an error message when you try to register a new organization, it is most likely because you are already associated with an existing organization at the corporate level. At this time, an individual user account can only be a Corporate Administrator or Corporate Manager for a single organization (read more about user permission levels here). Because the user account that is used to register an organization is assigned the Corporate Administrator role for that organization by default, you cannot use an account to set up an organization if that account is already a Corporate Administrator or Corporate Manager account for an existing organization.
In this case, you have 2 options:
Relinquish your existing Corporate permissions. This will generally be the best path for people who have transitioned to a new organization. If you are a Corporate Administrator for your existing/previous organization, please contact info@blueoceansustainability.com and let us know that you’d like to relinquish your existing corporate-level permissions, and we’ll handle that process for you. If you are a Corporate Manager, contact your Corporate Administrator to remove your existing corporate permissions (you can still remain as a Corporate Read-Only user and have access to the Corporate Dashboard if you and the Corporate Admin so choose, or you can be removed from the organization entirely). Once you no longer have Corporate Administrator/Manager permissions for an existing organization, you will be able to use your existing user account to create a new organization.
Create a new user account. If you would like to act as Corporate Administrator or Corporate Manager for more than one organization at the same time, you’ll need to use two separate user accounts to do so. You can register as a new user first and then register as an organization using your newly created 2nd account credentials, or you can just create both your new organization and new user account at the same time by indicating that you do not yet have a user account in the User Details section of the Organization Registration form.
If you’re unable to create a new organization for other reasons, please reach out to info@blueoceansustainability.com and let us know.
Who is responsible for managing construction sites in TrueCarbon?
Usually, the general contractor will be the “host” of the site in TrueCarbon – meaning they’ll handle paying for the sites and entering most of the data – but it’s really entirely up to you! The actual owner/developer for the project may choose to host and pay for all their own sites, choosing to share access with contractors, designers, and consultants as needed, or they may only pay for their own corporate dashboard and leave the purchase, hosting, and management of TrueCarbon sites to their contractors.
To get into more detail, it may be helpful to think about the three main “entities” in TrueCarbon: Organizations, Users, and Sites.
Organizations are the paying customers – all organizations have a corporate dashboard, purchased with an annual fee. In addition to the corporate dashboard, organizations can add sites. Once a site is added to an organization, that organization is the one that pays for that site in TrueCarbon (though they may share the site with other users and/or organizations as needed – those users/organizations are not responsible for paying for sites that are shared with them).
Users are the individual people who use TrueCarbon. Each user is given permissions at the Corporate level (which may be “none,” for users only authorized to access individual sites), as well as at the Site level – these permissions determine whether they have access to their organization’s corporate dashboard (and if so, how much access) and/or access to individual sites (and if so, which ones, and how much access). Read more about user permissions and roles here. Users can register for TrueCarbon on their own, but until they are given permission by a Site or Corporate Administrator to access specifics sites or organizations, they won’t be able to do very much.
Sites are the individual construction sites. Each site is “hosted” in TrueCarbon by a single organization (the organization paying for that site) – this may be the actual owner/developer, the general contractor, a consultant, or any other party. It’s entirely up to how individual contracts and partnerships are structured. A site can be shared with other organizations or individual users as needed, free of charge.
Can I share construction sites with people outside my organization?
Yes! You can share individual construction sites with anyone you like on a site-by-site basis, or you can choose to share your whole corporate portfolio (either with an individual, or with an entire partner organization and all its users). This allows all stakeholders in a project the level of access they need to view, analyze, maintain, and report sustainability data for their organization – user permissions in TrueCarbon can be customized to meet each organization’s precise needs. Learn more about sharing and how TrueCarbon is organized here.
What are the different roles that individual TrueCarbon users can hold?
TrueCarbon is an extremely flexible tool that provides organizations and construction sites with a very high level of control over access. Users can hold permissions at the corporate level and/or the site level.
Corporate-Level Roles and Permissions are held at the organizational level and are described below.
Corporate Administrator: This role is assigned by default to the user who creates an organization, but it can be reassigned later by the TrueCarbon team upon request. This user has full read/write permission for organizational information (including organization name, logo, location, payment info, new site creation, and organization-level parameters like custom construction phases and date ranges), as well as for all sites hosted by their organization (including adding users to sites and editing site information/renderings/data). The Corporate Administrator also has full Site Administrator permissions (see below) for all sites hosted by their organization. *
Corporate Manager: This user role has all the same permissions as the Corporate Administrator. The only difference is that the Corporate Administrator has the authority to designate a Corporate Manager (while a Corporate Administrator can only be added or removed by the TrueCarbon team). This role is intended to be a backup/delegate of the Corporate Administrator. The Corporate Manager also has full Site Manager permissions (see below) for all sites hosted by their organization. *
Corporate Read-Only: This permission level may be granted to any TrueCarbon user, inside or outside of an organization, by the organization’s Corporate Administrator or Corporate Manager. This allows the designated user to view (but not edit) the Corporate Dashboard for that organization. By default, Corporate Read-Only users have Site Read-Only permissions (see below) for all sites hosted by the organization in question, but these can be removed by a Corporate Admin or Manager.
* A single user may only be a Corporate Administrator or Corporate Manager for a single organization. Because of the vast amount of authority these users have, we recommend limiting the number of users with these permissions to just a few individuals
Site-Level Roles and Permissions are held at the individual site level and are described below.
Site Administrator: This role gives a user full read/write access to a specific construction site, including the ability to add and remove users from the site and edit site information/renderings/data. This role can only be granted by a Corporate Administrator or Corporate Manager.
Site Manager: This role comes with the same permissions as Site Administrator. The only major difference is that a Site Administrator has the authority to designate a Site Manager (but a Site Administrator can only be designated by someone at the Corporate Admin/Manager level).
Site Technician: This role is likely to come with some of the most frequent use of TrueCarbon. This user may access any sites to which they have been granted access by an Administrator or Manager at either level, and may add, edit, or delete any ongoing tracking data (energy, water, waste, offsets, etc.) for that site. However, they are not able to edit the basic site information such as name, location, construction schedule, rendering/image, etc.
Site Read-Only: This user may view any individual sites to which they have been granted access (by either an Administrator or Manager at either level), but they may not add or edit any site information.
How is my TrueCarbon Score calculated?
Your TrueCarbon Score is a 1-100 measurement of how sustainably your construction site is operating. It is intentionally designed to be time-agnostic (so the newest sites that have used the fewest resources will not automatically be the highest-scoring).
The Score takes into account your sustainable energy practices (specifically, how much renewable energy you are using – from your local grid, on-site generation, and green power purchases), how sustainable your water sources are, how much waste you are diverting, and any offsets you are purchasing.
The organizational-level score is calculated the same way as the site-level score, but takes into account the energy/water/waste/offsets at all sites across the organization’s portfolio.
How can I improve the TrueCarbon Score of my construction site or organization?
Your TrueCarbon Score takes into account how sustainably you are handling energy, water, and waste on your jobsite. The actions that will improve your score the most are generally the ones associated with proactive on-site efforts to better manage resources at the jobsite to reduce waste and excess usage, such as:
Inspecting for water leaks;
Implementing and enforcing anti-idling policies;
Installing motion/daylight sensors on temporary lighting systems.
Some other suggestions for ways to directly impact the numbers that influence your score include, but are not limited to, the following:
Use solar panels or other renewable methods to generate electricity for on-site trailers, lighting, and other needs.
Purchase green power through your utility (electricity generated using renewable means, rather than fossil fuels).
Select sites that are located in areas with a higher percentage of renewable sources in their local electric grid (this is obviously not an option for already-in-progress construction at the site level, but for organizations/portfolios that have the flexibility to select sites in greener-grid areas, this will help improve the corporate-level TrueCarbon Score).
Recycle greywater and/or collect rainwater on-site for non-potable water uses.
Send less waste to landfills by recycling, donating, re-using, or otherwise diverting construction waste materials.
Purchase offsets for energy, water, or carbon.
What is an “active site”?
An “active site” is a construction site that is actively operating and under construction – energy and water are being used for construction purposes, construction waste is still being hauled, etc. The number of active sites attached to your corporate account determines the cost for your organization’s use of TrueCarbon.
Once construction at a site has been completed, the site is marked as “Complete” in TrueCarbon, at which point it no longer counts toward your active site total, and you are no longer able to edit or add data to it.
What are Custom Construction Phases?
As part of setting up a new site, you’ll plan out the site’s construction schedule using pre-defined construction phases. TrueCarbon comes with the following default construction phases:
0. Pre-Construction
1. Environmental Abatement
2. Demolition/Site Clearing
3. Mass Grading/Excavation/Shoring
4. Foundations/Footings
5. Structure
6. Exterior
7. Interiors
You are welcome to use these phases to define your projects’ schedules. However, if your organization uses different phases to define construction schedules, you can create your own custom phases and map them to our default phases. For example, you may separate “4. Foundations/Footings” into separate end-use phases, such as “Building Foundation”, “Parking Garage Foundation,” etc. (all then mapped to the default “4. Foundations/Footings” phase for accurate comparison across projects).
If you create custom construction phases, those will be the phases available for sites to use when they are set up. Sites set up under any previous construction phase schemes will retain their original phases, but will have the option to update to the newly-defined phases.
