If you have an Enterprise or Specialist Subscription where an Organisation Portal has been set up, you should refer to this support post on how to add more users to your organisation.

If you have an Enterprise or Specialist Subscription where an Organisation Portal has been set up, you should refer to this support post on how to add your projects to your organisation.

1. Navigate to your Organisation Portal
2. Click on ‘Manage Users’
3. Click on ‘Edit Purchased Seats’
   
4. Change payment method: If you wish to continue with a monthly subscription (you will need to have your card details on hand), please choose the following payment option:
   
   If you wish to continue with an annual subscription, please choose the following payment option (the software will automatically notify us via email that you’ve updated your annual subscription and our BD team will contact you with the updated invoice):
   
5. Change the number of seats as required. This should include both new and existing seats that you wish to retain.
6. Click ‘Next’ to complete the update.
   

The goals of an eTool LCA are to:

• Quantify the environmental impacts of the clients design (normal eTool assessments pay particular attention to CO2 equivalent emissions, CO2e)
• Compare these impacts against a typical ‘business as usual’ benchmark
• Provide recommendations that will ideally reduce the total impacts of the building
• Conduct this in a cost effective, auditable and repeatable manner

A typical eTool assessment allows reporting of numerous impacts:

• Global Warming Potential
• Primary Energy
• Water Use
• Land Use
• Costs

Most commonly however we only report on Global Warming Potential.

It is the goal of eTool to estimate impacts with enough accuracy to compare different design options. The aim is to be vaguely right not precisely wrong. Estimating impacts to high levels of confidence requires detailed resources. In the case of buildings, this will usually be overshadowed by the influence of occupant behavior on operational impacts, or the actual building life that will deviate significantly from that estimated in this assessment. The assessment does not attempt to predict the affects of future changes to:

• Grid Power Sources (which hopefully by the time this building is actually nearing it’s design life will be predominantly renewable) Inflation of building materials (for maintenance), labour costs or energy costs
• The assessment therefore represents a snapshot in time, all else being equal, of the building performance.

As eTool continues to grow, so do the needs of our customers. Over the years, we have identified that there is a growing demand for more advanced and project specific support. We now realise that our ‘standard support’ platform is no longer appropriate for providing that level of support which is often time-critical. Our team contains a wealth of knowledge and experience that needs a better platform so that we can more effectively provide that support to our clients.

In order to deliver this level of support successfully, we have provided the list below to differentiate between what issues fall under ‘Advanced Support’ or ‘Standard Support’.

Standard Support

• All software specific matters (bugs, errors, registration/login, subscription/payment & organisation level management/administration issues or questions etc.)
• General LCA questions
• Will be subject to our SLA response times
  
• Paying subscribers will be prioritised over Open Users
• Available to all eTool users

Advanced Support

• Project specific questions and concerns
• Require specialist level LCA experience, knowledge & mentor-ship
• Session will need to be booked via a booking page to ensure timely support
• Prioritised above ‘Standard Support’
• Add-on to any paid subscription at an additional cost

Please note that as of 13/02/2023, all new Specialist Hotseat subscribers will receive complimentary 5 hours of Advanced Support sessions for free (valued at $200/hr).

You can refer to the eTool Pricing Guide below:

Please click on the link below if you’re interested to learn more about our Advanced Support Packages.

Advanced Support Packages

Related Posts:

How Do I Make a Support Request?

The demand for LCA of the built form is growing rapidly. To ensure we can maximise our current available resources to help accelerate LCD we strongly recommend all users to complete our free online training courses which are available in our Support Site right here. Enrollment is automatic as long as you are signed into eTool. Just navigate to the Support Site via your eTool profile after you’ve logged in.

eTool take security seriously.  For detailed information about our security and data privacy commitments and strategies see the eToolLCD Reliability and Security page.

Requirements depend on the stage of the project, see the below table to determine the required, optional and/or not required documentation.  Alternatively refer to this detailed knowledge-base article.

If you need a free and safe method for transferring large documents try Firefox Send for encrypted document sharing.

Some large projects will have hundreds of documents and sometimes it can be difficult to know what a reviewer needs to conduct a proper review. As a reviewer, we also don’t really want to spend hours searching for the correct document to confirm our queries as well. So here are some tips and suggestions for what kind of supporting documents are required to conduct a review of your study for certification.

Please be sure to upload any documents that support your study assumptions and methodology to the design that is being submitted for certification. Navigate to the ‘Docs’ tab in the design you are about to submit for certification and click on ‘+ New Upload’ add documents.

Please ensure that the documents you provide are in commonly accessible formats such as PDFs, common image files, .XLS and/or .CSV wherever possible. We encourage marking up documents as additional explanation of your assessment methodology & assumptions. Zipped files can also be uploaded to save uploading time.

Bear in mind that the main purpose of all supporting documents provided is for the reviewer to gain confidence that your modelling methodology is robust, reliable and sensible. If your documents are inconsistent with the design, vague and unorganised, it would be challenging for the reviewer to check that your assumptions are sound and to feel confident that what you’ve modelled is an accurate reflection of the project.

Please note the following list of most useful documents to provide in order to facilitate the review process. :

• Floor plans, elevations/cross sections of general layouts, 3D view of the building (PDF format only)
• If possible, preferably the original itemised cost plan/bill of quantities that show material quantities & units (PDF format only unless original format is already in .xls format in which case any edits/additions made by you should be clearly distinguished)
• Material (i.e. concrete, reinforcement, steel etc) schedules exported from Revit or other 3D software for material quantities (PDF or spreadsheets only)
• Structural drawings, although the above docs would be preferable (PDF format only)
• Spreadsheet demonstrating your own calculations/assumptions with clear references/notes to official sources/docs
  • ideally the spreadsheet should also list the original eTool names of templates used with clear reference to the new template name (if applicable) in the design
  • List of changes/edits made to the templates if any (a pop-up dialog box will ask if you wish to ‘unlock’ the template when you try to make changes to a template that should be noted) and any custom templates that you’ve created;
  • Please take care to add informative filenames/labels/titles to the data/sheets/documents (we can’t read your mind!)
• Energy/thermal performance simulation reports that demonstrate the energy use of the building (HVAC, hot water system, elevators, lighting, appliances, office workstations, base building loads, tenancy loads etc) if available
• Services specifications (mechanical & electrical)
• Emails from engineers/architects that provide specification details (PDF format only)
• For BREEAM projects, in addition to the above, please upload the Mat01 IMPACT form that is usually filled out by the BREEAM assessor for the submission.
• For users in non-English speaking countries, although we wish there was an easier way, it would be SUPER helpful if your documents were translated or at least have markups/annotations in English. In worse case scenario, we are able to use Google Translate, however nuances of the language do get lost in the conversion especially when it comes to construction terminology & abbreviations.

By default, all new Designs created in eTool will display the impact results in GWP (kgCO2eq). However, you can easily change this to display any environmental indicator that’s available in eToolLCD at any time in the Design by doing the following:

If you want to change the functional unit for the impact results, you can also do that by clicking on the little cog-wheel next to the Impact Summary input. You can also change the environmental indicator this way as well.

eTool does not rely on a single source of life cycle inventory data.  eTool LCI processes are from the following sources:

• Australasian LCI data which is provided by Life Cycle Strategies and is predominantly the AusLCI data with an EcoInvent shadow database.
• Other regional LCI data provided by Life Cycle Strategies for: North America, Europe, UK, New Zealand and Global.
• IMPACT EN15804 Data which is administered by BRE in the UK. Available for subscribers upon request and payment of the relevant project fee.
• Cost factors are from Industry quotes (usually three) cross referenced against construction cost handbooks

Standards

We always make sure that the LCI data that we use are aligned with international standards to ensure that we maintain compliance with ISO 14044 and EN 15978. 

Our LCI data sources comply with the following standards:

• EN15804
• ISO 14000
• ISO 21930
• ISCC Certifications
• GHG Protocol – Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard
• ILCD Handbook

In addition to the default data for material, EPDs data can be entered into eTool for further accuracy of your LCAs. Materials manufacturers interested in uploading their own data should contact Cerclos.

If you are not sure which LCI Source to use, please select the closest one to your region and run a sensitivity analysis on the top materials impacts. Compare different datasets using the LCI Comparison report and cross check against available EPDs in your region.

In relation to cost estimations, eTool has sought industry estimates for materials and energy consumption. This approach leads to significant under-estimation in the cost of highly processed goods (for example, the steel used for concrete reinforcing will cost a lot less than the steel used in a door handle, despite being of a very similar specification, the door handle has been value added significantly compared to the reinforcement. eTool on the other hand will price these two uses of the same steel product equally).

Please get in touch if you need any other information regarding eTool data sources.

Related Articles:
eTool: Compliance with International Standards
eTool Default LCI Regionalisation Methodology
Advantages of using EcoInvent in comparison with ICE database and EPD

AutoDesk Revit:  Yes!  We have a fully integrated plugin that transfers data from a Revit model directly into eTool templates.  See this video for more info.
IFC file can be imported in Revit, saved as RVT and then linked with eToolLCD. There might be some limitation in functionality within Revit as some elements will lose their ability to be modified, but this should not be a problem for the Revit to eToolLCD import process.

Others: Partially.  The Building Information Modelling (BIM) industry is still very much in its infancy and so is our integration with it.  Users can currently use the import feature to upload data from a .csv spreadsheet file.  A .csv file can be downloaded from most BIM models and match this quantity information to our library templates to fill the information gaps (assumptions/materials/people/equipment). Most BIM packages can facilitate either a .csv download or an .xml (or .gbxml for IES) download that can be opened in excel and saved as a .csv.  Another option is to obtain a pdf or excel file of the cost plan and convert this to .csv.

Interestingly full BIM integration was one of our number one goals for software development three years ago. It just kept getting surpassed in the priority list by other new features that we introduce.  Here are some reasons why this happens:

• LCA should be done as early in the design phase as possible (as is now recognised in BREEAM 2018). Most 3D drawings are completed well into the design phase, and we don’t want to lock designers into detail design before getting design feedback. We really only need a very simple line diagram to give us areas of walls, windows, floors etc. In fact for target setting or early RIBA stage 2 analysis, we run a model from a basic accommodation schedule.  There is far more opportunity for improving the outcome if our first LCA model is based on early concept designs than wait until a comprehensive 3D model has been completed, which will inevitably be too late to influence.
• There is a large amount of information that is entered into the LCA which doesn’t get included in a BIM model.  For example, you might have the carpet area or cladding but do you have the glue, the underlay or the framing, the brackets, mullions/transoms etc and all the people and equipment used to install them? BIM is not generally at that level of detail yet (it will be soon and we will be ready for it).  This can be very simply added using eTools unique template system, and the BIM integration solutions we have and will continue to develop will leverage the eToolLCD template system.
• We want to make sure we don’t actually end up making the LCA harder. There is a risk that the users spend so much time cleaning up the 3D drawing or BIM model that it would have been quicker for them to have just entered the templates manually.
• BIM expertise also has a long way to go.  The gap in a single line of a model (which bears no importance for a BIM modeller) could be the difference between a hollow and a solid column having a huge impact on the material quantity!
• BIM is complicated due to inconsistency in how it is applied and managed around the industry. BIM has all the hallmarks of a typical ‘network’ technology uptake where one system gains all the market share because it’s easiest to then collaborate. We want to make sure we back the winner in terms of exchange protocols and categorisation systems etc so we’ve been pretty happy sitting and waiting to see which systems win the race.
• The current method for data entry into eTool is actually fast and reliable. At eTool we do a lot of LCAs ourselves, we’re probably the biggest single user of our own software, so we know where the time is spent in conducting an LCA from start to finish. The data entry is actually quite quick (averages less than 20% of the time taken for an LCA).  So technically the potential benefits of 3D or BIM integration are surprisingly minor.

We will complete further BIM integration in the future.  We would really like people to be able to run a 3D package that gives them thermal performance feedback and also full LCA feedback in the same place. Decisions such as triple glazing or increased concrete thermal mass need to be considered in an LCA to truly understand their net environmental benefits or impacts.  This is the goal and we want to achieve that.

BIM Integration using TEMPLATES

Related articles:
Exporting schedules from Revit
Revit Plugin

In eToolLCD, we have 2 main LCI group/datasets.

• eTool Default

• BRE IMPACT

The two LCI groups are very different from each other. They have their own set of materials and equipment/people list and can not be used interchangeably within the same project. Therefore, when adding a template to a Design, you won’t be able to see or add a template that is different from the LCI group that you’ve defined for your project.

The ‘BRE IMPACT’ dataset is specifically for BREEAM assessments whereas the ‘eTool Default’ dataset is suitable for all other rating schemes. Please pay attention to the ‘LCI Group’ of the template when you’re reviewing templates in the library to know which templates will be available for your design.

If you have created your Project/template using the wrong dataset or if you wish to switch LCI groups, please refer to this support post.

eTool Default – LCI Sources

Under the ‘eTool Default’ LCI group, there are a number of sub- LCI Sources as per the list below:

• Australasian
• European
• Global
• New Zealand
• North American
• United Kingdom

These LCI Sources relate to the location of the project and provide more refined LCI data for industry average transportation/shipping distances for various construction materials.

eTool Default – Electricity, Gas, Water & Waste Water Grids

The eTool Default group also has a set of grids that can be specified independently of the LCI Sources. For example, you can have an Australasian LCI Source Project with an ‘EU Poland’ electricity grid. This ability to ‘mix-and-match’ allows some flexibility to help refine the LCA study to more accurately match the location & grid intensities of the Project. If this approach is used, the study author must be able to provide reasonable justification for the selection to study audiences and/or the reviewer.

In eTool, we have 2 main LCI group/datasets.

• eTool Default

• BRE IMPACT

At the moment, the ‘BRE IMPACT’ and ‘eTool Default’ LCI dataset/group and templates are kept completely separate and are not interchangeable. Once a Project is created using one LCI group, you will be unable to change it to another LCI group after that. If you need your project to be in the other LCI group, you can only do so by creating a whole new Project in the correct LCI group. This also means that you will need to remodel your whole Design again since there are two separate collections of templates for the two LCI groups and the original Design can’t be translated into the new LCI group.

This also applies to templates that are created in one LCI group. Once a template is created, it can not be swapped over to the other LCI group since the material library for the two datasets are completely separate and different.

eTool Default – LCI Sources

Under the ‘eTool Default’ LCI group, there are a number of sub- LCI Sources as per the list below:

• Australasian
• European
• Global
• New Zealand
• North American
• United Kingdom

These LCI Sources relate to the location of the project and provide more refined LCI data for industry average transportation/shipping distances for various construction materials.

eTool Default – Electricity, Gas, Water & Waste Water Grids

The eTool Default group also has a set of grids that can be specified independently of the LCI Sources. For example, you can have an Australasian LCI Source Project with an ‘EU Poland’ electricity grid. This ability to ‘mix-and-match’ allows some flexibility to help refine the LCA study to more accurately match the location & grid intensities of the Project. If this approach is used, the study author must be able to provide reasonable justification for the selection to study audiences and/or the reviewer.

Our users have previously requested a feature to make it possible to have the two LCI groups within the same Project in eTool, please read more about it here: Use Multiple LCI Sources In the Same Project

Most of the templates in our library are pretty ‘old’ as in they were created with datasets that are now superseded. However, this is not an issue because the LCI source/dataset you have specified for your Project will over-ride the LCI source/dataset of any template you add into your design. So, as long as you have the correct LCI source selected in your project, all added templates will grab the same data from the back end, even if they were originally created in an older version or a different country (but from the same LCI group).

The only other issue you may find relating to this topic is when your project has a different LCI group from the template. Please refer to this FAQ for more information: Why Can’t I Add Certain Templates to My Design?

Based on the hundreds of studies conducted using eToolLCD in the past 9 years of developing and using our template library, we believe that it contains enough templates to meet the cut-off criteria (as described below) for the majority of the most common projects for LCA purposes. Therefore we do not have a specific plan to intentionally expand the template library significantly as we feel that it is more important to spend our time finding ways to reduce a large amount of carbon than creating new templates by user demand. In saying that, our template library is constantly expanding in an organic way since our own team often create new templates as they conduct our in-house assessments.

Nonetheless, eToolLCD enables users to create LCAs that are as accurate and detailed as the user wishes by creating their own custom templates. We encourage the following minimum accuracy principles when creating templates and designs:

1. Ensure cut off criteria is met (Any flow of >1% mass, >1% energy or with environmental significance and sum of neglected flows not more than 5%)
2. Ensure the consequence of data quality decisions is considered carefully. Would a particular lack of data quality be likely to change subsequent design decisions based on the LCA model?

If there is no requirement for your study to be highly precise/accurate, we advise our users not to get too bogged down with refining the details. We believe that it is far more important to spend that time figuring out improvement strategies than refining a highly detailed design so that they may be able to make informed decisions/recommendations to influence design changes to best improve the impacts of their project in a timely manner.

For  users who have created custom templates and wish to get them validated and made public for use, please refer to this support post: Validated Templates

Only paid subscriptions will be allowed access to the latest LCI sources. This is to help cover the costs we pay for these datasets.

If you have a paid subscription, you need to submit a Support Request to us so that we can assign the latest LCI source to you as this is currently a manual process. If you are a new user that has joined an organisation in eToolLCD, you will also need to submit a Support Request to get access to these sources.

It depends on which dataset you are using:

The Australasian LCI has predefined materials with different concrete strength and fly ash or blast furnace slag blends so you can choose the specific material by selecting concrete Mpa and % of cement replacement.
See more details in this example

BRE IMPACT LCI has predefined concrete materials with 30% fly ash content (PFA – pulverised fuel ash) and it also has the fly ash as a material which allows the user to customise the concrete mix and % of cement replacement. The basis to create a concrete template with fly ash in the mix is to add the standard concrete material (m3), subtract the amount of portland cement (kg) entered as a negative number and add the same amount as aggregate/fill GGBS (kg).
See more details in this example

In order to normalise assessments between building types the environmental and cost impacts are expressed in terms of an applicable functional unit.  Typically eTool uses the following functional units for different project types:

• Commercial Office – Impacts measured at:
  • Per m² per year (generally Net Lettable Area is preferred); or
  • Per Occupant Hour
• Residential buildings – Impacts measured at:
  • Per occupant per year
• Community, healthcare, retail – Impacts measured at:
  • Per m² per year (generally Net Lettable Area is preferred); or
  • Per Occupant Hour
• Industrial buildings – Impacts measured at:
  • Per m² per year (generally Net Lettable Area is preferred)

All the functional units rely on a prediction of design life, which has a very large effect on their comparable sustainability. Although difficult to predict, eTool uses a methodology aimed at producing fair and repeatable comparisons between building designs. Individual building life spans will deviate significantly from the design lives calculated using this methodology, however the aim is to predict the mean expected life of all buildings with similar characteristics and circumstances. You can read about it in detail here.

Yes! When you’re logged into eToolLCD, simply navigate to the “Library” tab, select the “Benchmarks” link directly underneath the toolbar and you are then able to access a read only version of the various benchmarks.  Direct link here.

Yes, simply select a a grid from the electricity grid library that represents the future carbon intensity of the grid you want to model.  We have set up some examples already:

• 2030 Australian Generic Grid
• 2050 Australian Generic Grid

If the future grid you want to model doesn’t exist, choose an existing grid with a similar carbon intensity.  Please note that modelling impacts of future grid scenarios may effect your compliance to some standards.  We recommend only running this as a scenario rather than a base case for your LCA.

Please click here for a very detailed answer.

Sometimes accidents happen. Luckily cancelling a certification request is super easy! When your design has been submitted for certification, you’ll find that an ‘Un-Certify’ option is now available under the ‘Action’ button of the design or under the ‘Certification’ tab. Click that and your request will be cancelled.

As our user base grows, it becomes more challenging to manage the support requests we receive from our users. In order to ensure that we fairly allocate time to address support requests from all our users, we have adopted a support management platform to help us manage your support requests better and more equitably.

Please note that it is company policy not to respond to support requests sent directly to individual personnel. Support requests will only be addressed if they are sent through the support management platform.

Unable to Log Into eTool

If you’re unable to log into eTool or if you’re not registered but require support, you can send an email directly to lcdsupport@cerclos.com. The support request should ideally be submitted by the user requiring support to ensure effective communication between the user with the support team and avoid miscommunication. Please refer to the rest of the post below for a guide on what kind of information you need to provide in your Support Request.

Already Logged Into eTool

If you are already logged into eTool and wish to submit a support request, please click on the icon link below to take you directly to the Support Request submission page.

For future support requests and to view the status or edit your existing requests, you can access our Support Site any time once you’ve logged into eTool by clicking on the ‘Help’ link in the top right corner of the page.

Once you’re in the Support Site, click on the ‘Request Support’ icon to create a new support request or manage your existing request(s).

Useful Information To Provide in Your Support Request

Below are a couple of important details that would be very helpful to include when submitting your support request:

• URL Link to the Project, Structure, Design, Template or EPD etc that you require assistance with.
  
• Screen grabs that illustrate the error or problem you’re experiencing.

If your support request was generated successfully, you will receive an email receipt with your support ticket number to notify you that your support request has been received.

Support Level Agreement

Depending on what has been entered in the SLA fields of your ticket (this will be reviewed by the LCA Coaching team case by case), our support level agreement is as per the table below:

At eTool, we’re always open to hearing back from our users on how we can improve our software. We are always getting hundreds of fantastic suggestions but it can be very difficult to know which features should be prioritised or which features are most useful for our users. In order to help us figure that out, we have a Feature Request page on our Support Site where all our users can create a new request or vote on which requests they wish to see expedited. Once a feature has reached 20 votes, it will get reviewed and placed on our software roadmap.

To access the Feature Request page, just navigate to the Support Site and click on the Feature Request icon as below.

On the Feature Request page, please search existing requests to make sure that someone else hasn’t already requested for the exact same feature you’re looking for. If it already exists, you can vote for it by clicking on the ‘thumbs up’ icon next to it. You will need to be logged into eToolLCD in order to register your vote.

If the feature does not exist, you can create one by filling out the form on the right side of the page.

Once your request has been generated successfully, you can share the link with your team members so that they can vote for it too!