WC3 Carbon App
Frequently Asked Questions
General Questions
What is the WC3 Carbon App?
WC3 is a professional-grade calculator designed for the civil and construction industry to quantify upfront embodied carbon. It covers the full A1-A5 lifecycle stages (Materials, Transport, and Construction) to provide a comprehensive "cradle-to-practical-completion" assessment.
What do "A1-A5" mean?
A1-A5 are lifecycle stages for a construction project, as defined by international standards like EN 15978. They cover the "cradle-to-practical-completion" footprint of a project.
A1-A3: Product Stage: Emissions from manufacturing all project materials.
A4: Transport Stage: Emissions from transporting those materials to your site.
A5: Construction Stage: Emissions from all on-site activities, such as running an excavator, paver, or site generator.
Are there plans to include lifecycle stages B, C and D?
No, and this is a deliberate strategic choice. WC3 is a tool for Upfront Carbon (A1-A5), not a full lifecycle (A-D) assessment tool.
Our purpose is to help you make immediate, high-impact decisions on the emissions you can control now (materials, transport, and construction). This focus on "upfront" emissions is critical for meeting immediate 2035/2050 climate targets, based upon current technologies and without speculating on future emission intensities.
While full LCAs are important for other purposes, our app is a specialised design and refinement tool built to provide a clear assessment of the emissions being locked in by your project today.
What's the difference between the "Free" and "Pro" tiers?
Free: Our Free tier provides the full A1-A5 calculation engine and the ability to import data from Civil Site Design or other WC3 project files. It is limited to 20 material inputs and 2 scenarios.
Pro: Our Pro tier is the complete professional workflow. It unlocks unlimited cloud-based projects and scenarios, an AI-powered analysis of your results, and professional PDF reporting.
Using the App
How do I import my project from Civil Site Design (CSD)?
This is the fastest way to get started and is available on all plans, including the Free tier.
In your Civil Site Design software, navigate to the Sectional Volumes window and ‘Outputs’.
Click the Carbon Calculator “WC3 Export". This creates a .json file.
In the WC3 App header, click the "Import Project" button. This will overwrite your current workspace.
Select the .json file you just exported from CSD. The app will automatically populate all your project data.
How do I save my project?
Free Users: You can save your one active project by using the "Export Project" button in the header. This saves a .json file to your computer, which you can re-import later. You can also save up to 2 "Scenarios" for comparison, stored in your browser’s local storage.
Pro Users: Your work is autosaved to the cloud as you go. You can manage all your saved projects and scenarios from the "My Projects" menu (a Pro feature).
Why are my A5 Construction Activity values zero?
The A5 Construction Activities table is auto-calculated based on the data you enter in the A1-A3 Materials tab. For example, when you add a "Pipe" in the A1-A3 tab, a corresponding "Trenching" activity is automatically created in the A5 tab.
How do the Diesel vs. Electric calculations work?
The calculator is "unit-aware." In the A4 (Transport) and A5 (Earthworks) tabs, you can select an Energy Source from the dropdown.
If you select a source with litre units (like "Diesel Fuel"), the app runs the diesel calculation.
If you select a source with kWh units (like "Electricity: NSW/ACT"), the app automatically switches to the electric calculation.
What is an EPD and how do I use it?
An EPD (Environmental Product Declaration) is a verified document that provides a specific material's carbon footprint. It is the most accurate data source. In any A1-A3 table, click the "EPD" button on a row to open the EPD modal. There, you can access a link to EPD Australasia’s database of EPDs, and then enter the specific factors from a product's EPD to override the app's default data.
Billing & Security
How do I manage my subscription or cancel?
You can manage all aspects of your Pro subscription (including updating payment methods or cancelling) through your Squarespace customer account, which you created during the purchase process.
Is my project data secure?
Yes. Data security is our highest priority. All users are authenticated through Google's secure Firebase Authentication system. All Pro-tier project data is stored in a private Firestore database, which is protected by server-side rules that make it cryptographically impossible for any other user to access your project data.