For almost two decades, the Athena Institute has been helping architects, engineers and others to evaluate the environmental impacts of new and existing buildings through Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)*.
The Athena Institute offers the only two tools in North America for the Life Cycle Assessment of whole buildings and assemblies: the ATHENA® Impact Estimator for Buildings software, and the award winning ATHENA® EcoCalculator for Assemblies, a free, easy to use tool derived from the Impact Estimator. These tools are industry recognized and respected systems based on a set of comprehensive, comparable databases on a wide variety of building materials, calculating energy use and related emissions to air, water and land over the life cycle of the building.
Morrison Hershfield has collaborated with the Athena Institute in the development of the latest version of the Impact Estimator for Buildings – Version 4 – and is also the software distributor. Version 4 features increased functionality and flexibility for design teams, new regions, and more indicators of a building’s impact on the environment.
This groundbreaking LCA software offers results based on real impacts such as CO2 emissions, energy consumption and solid waste generation. Relying on real impacts allows better understanding of environmental effects than relying on imperfect measures of impact, such as recycled content or use of re-used materials.
*LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) is an internationally recognized approach to evaluating the impacts that a product or process has on the environment over the course of its entire life. It is widely accepted as one of the best ways to assess and compare the environmental impacts of alternative building materials.
The Impact Estimator for Buildings
- Is the only North American software tool that evaluates whole buildings and assemblies based on internationally recognized life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology
- Is capable of modeling 95% of the building stock in North America
- Including industrial, institutional, office and residential designs
- Simulating over 1,200 assembly combinations
- Takes into account the environmental impacts of:
- Material manufacturing, including resource extraction and recycled content
- Related transportation
- On-site construction
- Regional variations in energy use, transportation and other factors
- Building type and assumed lifespan
- Maintenance, repair and replacement effects
- Demolition and disposal
- Operating energy emissions and pre-combustion effect
| Download and Order Trial Version |
Upgrade to Latest Version |
- Download a trial version of Impact Estimator 4
- Extract .zip file and launch setup.exe
- To Purchase the Full Version Online and to obtain product key #
- To Purchase by Fax
|
- Uninstall previous versions of Impact Estimator using "Control Panel" and "Add Remove Programs"
- Download latest version of Impact Estimator 4
- Extract .zip and launch setup.exe
- Register software with your previously purchased product key # using "Help" and "Register Now" and enter the product key # using the format "xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx"
|
 |
|
For more information regarding purchasing Impact Estimator 4, contact Sherry Barr at (613) 739 3262.
For more information on Impact Estimator 4, visit the Athena Insitute's website http://www.athenasmi.org/tools/impactEstimator
For information regarding known issues with Impact Estimator 4, visit http://www.athenasmi.org/tools/impactEstimator/knownIssues.html
The EcoCalculator for Assemblies
- offers design professionals access to instant LCA results for more than 400 common building assemblies, covering 90-95% of the structural envelope systems typically used in residential and commercial buildings.
- relies on comprehensive, comparable databases for building materials and products.
- offers results for a broad range of environmental impacts including fossil fuel depletion, global warming contribution (CO2), air and water pollution, solid waste, and resource consumption.
To download EcoCalculator for Assemblies, visit the Athena Institute's Website.