Global engineering consultancy Buro Happold has announced a partnership with ORIS Materials Intelligence to expand carbon measurement and support low-carbon design across its global infrastructure portfolio.
According to Buro Happold, the partnership with ORIS willstrengthen its ability to embed carbon intelligence into design processes, building on its PAS 2080 foundations, and further supporting clients in delivering measurable and scalable carbon reduction across major programmes.
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The ORIS platform combines infrastructure carbon modelling with automation and AI capabilities to streamline much of the data processing traditionally required for carbon assessments. Quantities, materials and supply chain data can be automatically extracted and analysed, significantly reducing the manual work typically required to calculate the carbon footprint of infrastructure projects.
By accelerating and standardising these assessments, engineers can evaluate multiple design and sourcing scenarios in minutes rather than days, enabling teams to identify lower-carbon design and procurement strategies from the earliest stages of infrastructure development.
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The phased deployment will begin across key projects in the UK and the Middle East, with plans to expand across Buro Happold’s international offices.
Across the infrastructure sector, engineering teams face growing pressure to quantify and reduce the carbon footprint of their projects. Yet carbon assessments are often performed through manual spreadsheets or external studies late in the design process, limiting their ability to influence engineering decisions.
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By integrating ORIS into project workflows, Buro Happold aims to measure embodied carbon across infrastructure projects as part of its 2030 climate commitments; identify carbon-reduction opportunities during project design; and support compliance with PAS2080, the UK standard for carbon management in infrastructure.
The partnership supports Buro Happold’s broader climate strategy. In 2019, the firm introduced its Net Zero Routemap, committing to design all new-build projects to be net-zero carbon in operation by 2030 and to reduce the embodied carbon intensity of projects by half from a 2020 baseline.
‘Buro Happold prides itself on being at the forefront of sustainable design in our cities and infrastructure, and we are committed to reducing the carbon impact of our projects,’ said Simon Pilkington, UK executive director cities and infrastructure at Buro Happold. ‘It’s great to have the ORIS tool as part of our armoury to help us understand and implement informed carbon emission reductions for public realm and infrastructure elements. We look forward to working with ORIS to expand the use of this tool across our project portfolio, closing the loop on our thinking and tracking of actual performance.’
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‘We are thrilled to join forces with Buro Happold to drive market transformation in infrastructure engineering by scaling up carbon assessments,’ said Nicolas Miravalls, CEO of ORIS Materials Intelligence. ‘Enabling a significant shift toward low-carbon infrastructure requires the ability to evaluate environmental impact during the design phase, a capability made possible by integrating ORIS into the design workflow.’