cove.tool attended, by special invitation, the UN Science and Business Policy Forum and the UN Environmental Assembly from March 8th – March 12th. With a few thousand delegations from over 100 countries, including hundreds of ministers, business directors, researchers and more, the assembly 

sent a strong message of urgency for sustainability. The overall of theme for this year’s assembly was Innovative Solutions for Environmental Challenges and Sustainable Consumption and Production, making cove.tool a perfect fit as a presenter and attendee.

UN Assembly Opening

Princess Laurentien of Netherlands

At the UN Environment Assembly cove.tool laid out the contribution of buildings to the overall impact on climate change and how data driven decision making can help change that. It is amazing that in a world were every purchase is highly scrutinized in terms of specifications, less than half of buildings are energy modeled. In US alone, buildings contribute to a total 40% carbon emission and 78% of electricity use. Since the US is one of the top 5 emitters in the world, architects and engineers have an outsized opportunity to make a difference.

Sandeep Ahuja, Co-Founder, cove.tool at the plenary session

How buildings impact the world in terms of emissions

The key goal of the session was to help solve the global sustainability crisis. His excellency, Siim Kiisler, president of UN Environment Assembly, highlighted in the opening sessions that “We meet at a time when major scientific assemblies have highlighted that we have reached a crucial tipping point. Our planet is increasingly polluted. Affected by the adverse affects of climate change. The last 4 years have been the warmest years in the world and we have all become far too comfortable in our separate countries. Unless we come together, we will be unable to turn these mega trends and we will be unable to meet the Sustainable Development Goals We need to come together in a balanced and integrated manner for the urgent need to take action.”

Mr. Siim Kiisler, the president of UN Environment Assembly at the Opening

We need to define ambitious national and local targets along with innovative solutions and technologies to help meet them. One of the main themes of the conference was “Big Data”. Data is not just documenting and recording, but acquiring a framework to make rational informed decisions. Upon our shoulders lies an immense responsibility to respect the earth that we have borrowed from our children and future generations. cove.tool focuses on automated, quick energy and cost optimization for buildings. Early in the design process, decisions are being made too fast to wait on detailed simulation. These detailed simulations may be accurate to the second decimal place, but significantly reduce the potential number of alternatives examined due to the specialized and expensive consultants required to create them. This would be like doing a full construction drawing set before getting any client feedback (not smart!). cove.tool allows design teams to study thousands of alternatives holistically to find the cost optimal ways to meet our energy targets. Automaton has made this process inexpensive, easier and faster. There is no excuse for not having 100% of projects be modeled early stage. I hope this UN debrief of goals of the proceedings inspires you as much it did the many thousands delegates we met in Nairobi, Kenya.