High-Resolution Carbon Planning: How EcoSphere Helps Cities Cut Emissions Smartly

In a groundbreaking initiative from the University of Notre Dame and the Academy of Silesia, researchers have developed EcoSphere, a comprehensive and automated software tool designed to assess and mitigate embodied and operational carbon emissions in urban environments. This innovation, detailed in the journal Automation in Construction, responds to a critical need in the field of sustainable urban planning, particularly in developed nations such as the United States. With the construction industry responsible for approximately 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and with embodied carbon constituting a significant share in low-energy and net-zero buildings, the urgency for high-resolution, actionable data is undeniable. EcoSphere leverages cutting-edge technologies such as computer vision, machine learning, and natural language processing to generate building-level datasets from sources like the National Structure Inventory (NSI), Google Street View, and satellite imagery, making it possible to evaluate carbon footprints across entire cities with unprecedented accuracy.

High-Resolution Urban Data at Your Fingertips

EcoSphere’s first innovation lies in its ability to construct detailed building stock datasets by aggregating data from various sources and filling gaps using AI techniques. Every building in a city can be characterized by attributes such as wall and roof material, foundation type, height, and floor area. In cities like Chicago, this resulted in over 1.3 million buildings being cataloged and categorized into 568 unique building archetypes based on their structural and material profiles. These archetypes are modeled using the Athena Impact Estimator, which calculates baseline embodied carbon emissions for a standard 1000 square foot, single-floor prototype of each type. This modeling allows the software to estimate emissions at scale by adjusting for each building’s actual size and number of floors. As a result, policymakers and planners can generate a dynamic emissions profile for any city in the U.S., fully grounded in physical and structural realities.

Simulating Policy Scenarios with Real-World Complexity

At the heart of EcoSphere is its powerful Python-based simulation engine that models a building’s lifecycle and the emissions implications of various urban development decisions. Buildings are sorted by age into new, mid-life, and old categories. Those over a certain age threshold are randomly assigned to renovation, demolition, or full replacement scenarios, mirroring the uncertainty and variability of real-world planning decisions. This process also includes an assumed rate of city expansion, adding newly constructed buildings each year. The simulation further incorporates six carbon mitigation strategies: reduced per capita floor area, extended building lifespan, lower use of heavy materials, increased use of wood, improved recycling rates, and prefabrication methods. By modeling how each strategy affects emissions and construction costs under different conditions, EcoSphere allows users to forecast the trade-offs of competing policy choices and assess which approaches offer the greatest return on investment in emissions reduction.

From Data to Decisions: A Dashboard for Everyone

One of EcoSphere’s standout features is its accessible and interactive dashboard interface, built using HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and Python. This design makes the platform user-friendly not only for researchers but also for policymakers, city officials, and developers. Users can select a city, choose to run simulations on the entire building stock or a random sample, and define key parameters such as emission types, building lifespan thresholds, and renovation-demolition ratios. Simulation results are automatically saved in CSV format, and users can visualize outcomes through customizable charts and dashboards. A particularly valuable feature is the translation of emissions into dollar costs using Direct Air Capture (DAC) pricing, with a default value set at $0.25/kg CO₂. This helps users grasp the financial implications of emissions under different scenarios. Tabs dedicated to cost analysis, scenario variable drivers, sensitivity analysis, 3D visualizations, and predictive modeling add additional layers of insight.

Case Studies Reveal Key Insights: Chicago vs. Indianapolis

The researchers applied EcoSphere to compare the urban carbon profiles of Chicago and Indianapolis, two cities with similar climates but markedly different building practices. Indianapolis, where most buildings are wooden structures, has a relatively low embodied carbon baseline. Conversely, Chicago, with its masonry-dominated construction, exhibits significantly higher emissions. The simulation showed that for a sample of 25,000 buildings, the worst-case scenario could cost $5.5 billion in Indianapolis, compared to $22 billion in Chicago. However, with aggressive mitigation strategies, Chicago’s emissions could be reduced to match Indianapolis’s worst-case level, revealing vast potential for policy-driven improvement. While Indianapolis offers limited room for further reduction (just 5–6%), Chicago could potentially slash emissions by 15–25%, depending on the intervention. This underscores how local building materials and historical urban development patterns play a major role in determining a city’s carbon mitigation potential.

Bridging the Gap Between Research and Policy

EcoSphere represents a paradigm shift in how cities can plan for carbon neutrality. It bridges the long-standing divide between high-level climate goals and the granular, neighborhood-level actions required to meet them. The tool’s automation, scalability, and user-centered design make it ideal for a variety of stakeholders, from municipal planners to educational institutions. Policymakers can now simulate complex urban development strategies with ease and compare outcomes in financial and environmental terms. Moreover, the software’s ability to integrate real-time data, generate predictive models, and visualize carbon impacts makes it a powerful addition to any smart city toolkit. Funded by the National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Energy, and supported by Notre Dame’s Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society, EcoSphere not only offers technical innovation but also sets a new standard for practical, data-driven urban sustainability. It is poised to help cities worldwide take informed, decisive steps toward their net-zero targets.