Vol. 19, Issue 04 2021
Democratizing net zero design: cove.tool
Sandeep Ahuja Ajuha is the CEO and co-founder of cove.tool, the end-to-end building-performance and data app. Most recently, Sandeep presented at the U.N. Environment Assembly, with 1,500 global delegates, on the impact of buildings on climate change, showcased at the TedX Atlanta and won the Forbes 30 under 30. With her desire to bring automation into the AEC world, she is pioneering the integration of data-driven thinking into the design and construction process by developing intelligent software.
Remote working proved that having an efficient workflow is valuable to our professional and personal lives. Being able to understand how to design sustainably is as important as meeting our project budget. Sandeep Ahuja, AIA, co-founder and CEO at cove.tool, will tell us about reducing embodied carbon in our projects assisted by the software she developed. Tannia Chavez (TC): How did cove.tool begin? What was your vision? Sandeep Ahuja (SA): When I learned about the impact buildings have on the environment, I wanted to find a way to make significant changes in the building and construction industry. I decided to become a sustainable architect and work with firms to reduce energy consumption while reducing costs for their projects. I collaborated across 26 offices to build the internal in-house green team at my first sustainability consulting office. My goal was to integrate sustainability into every single project from start to finish. During this time, I realized that many of the clients we worked with were from large firms that could afford this type of consulting service. But there were smaller firms that didn’t have the same resources. If we were really going to have an impact on climate change, firms of all sizes needed to have access to our services. My co-founder and I started using computer scripts to automate processes and take on more clients. We were able to support more than 200 projects on the East Coast and a few on the West Coast in the time span of a year. But it was clear that we needed to streamline processes to accomplish our goals and expand the business. We brought our third co-founder onboard and started developing the cove.tool app, a data-driven platform designed to optimize building projects for energy and cost. We’ve come a long way since then, and the tool has grown from a building-performance and energy-modeling platform to adding 3D modeling and HVAC design for mechanical engineers. Honestly, it was a gradual transition. But now, we continue to expand the software and grow our team, and most importantly, we have offset more than 29 million metric tons of carbon to date—and we’re not done yet.
TC: How much life-cycle energy can I save in a project by using cove.tool? SA: It depends on the ambitions of the project team, their goals, and the actual design. The spectrum of the project and whether the project is a new construction versus a renovation also has a significant impact. However, we’ve had clients that were able to achieve net-zero carbon in newly designed projects, too. For us, it is extremely important to talk about the total cost of the construction. If it’s not affordable or not included in the project budget, it is simply not feasible. We believe that managing the budget is how we help small projects with a low budget to make a better decision. Our platform currently holds over 25,000 projects, and many of them have a high budget. But we focus on supporting every scale of the project, not restricting the design intent or the realizations. Cove.tool provides a minimum of three compatible and affordable options to fit each specific budget. There are an infinite number of options affecting the project’s budget. Cove.tool narrows down all the possible solutions that can include focusing on one option or several, like mechanical systems, roof, wall sections, glass, including TEI renovations. It’s easier to visualize the area with a higher priority when looking at the whole analysis report. It’s kind of pushing and pulling to find the best solution for a tight budget. We also have an in-house team of experts that can guide you in choosing your best-suited alternative. We offer training, coaching, and live-chat support, as we understand that this topic is broad and very new to many of our worldwide clients TC: Can you provide an example of an unusual building project that has succeeded with the advice of your experts and platform? SA: One that instantly comes to my mind is the Living Building Challenge project at the Georgia Tech Student Center—now known as the Campus Center. Our experts at cove.tool helped the university’s design group realize that by renovating the
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