Keeping track of the operational and embodied carbon-emissions of a business used to be seen as a bit of a sustainability novelty. But an increased awareness among construction owners and public agencies out to track these emissions and other externalities is driving firms to take it more seriously.

“A lot of our customers are not coming from an activist perspective but a business pragmatist one,” says Saleh ElHattab, founder and CEO of Gravity Climate. Gravity’s tool lets firms track the embodied carbon in their operations, from the energy mix of their power utilities to the emissions data from equipment telematics to their entire construction supply chain.

Gravity aims for a full life cycle inventory of business activities, with an eye on steering users toward greener alternatives. “Like in material procurement, we don’t say you have to switch from steel or concrete, but show how you can source greener products,” says ElHattab. He adds that this isn’t about bragging rights. Owners are making demands of contractors to track this data and build sustainably, so it’s just good business.

“With the increased focus on driving sustainable building practices across the construction industry, our clients can leverage Gravity’s sustainability insights through the Procore platform via an embedded app to map, measure, optimize and report on their operational and embodied carbon emissions,” says Kris Lengieza, vice president of global partnerships at Procore. Gravity recently added in a Procore integration to their tool. “Working with Procore helps us focus on the multitude of players out there,” says ElHattab. “So if one [client] at the tail end of a project asks for an emissions disclosure, we can focus on the documented supply chain instead of going back and asking every individual on the project.”