A tool from VTT and Rapal for reducing the carbon footprint of properties

Office premises cause a significant part of society’s environmental effects. VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has developed a tool together with Rapal Oy that can be used to determine the environmental load caused by various premise solutions. The calculator helps to set objectives and monitor results simultaneously with respect to both finance and environmental impacts, and support property management that is in accordance with sustainable development.

The carbon footprint calculator is based on Rapal Oy’s Optimaze.net property management service. The core of the Optimaze.net service is an ASP-based software used with a web browser. The system combines the perspectives of finance, personnel resources, and premises; and it can be used to calculate costs for particular user groups and premises. VTT developed a feature into the service that enables the user of the office premises to get an overall estimate of the environmental impact of the premise solutions under examination.