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Madaster platform developments

Blogs 14 dec 2022
Over the past five years, Madaster has evolved from being a register of materials to an integral platform with insights into circularity, detachability, embodied carbon, and financial value. With its abundance of data, Madaster offers powerful insights which clients use to strengthen development and asset management decision making. Additionally, users gain access to new forms of reporting which are aligned with national and European standards. What new capabilities has the Madaster platform gained this year? How do users benefit? And what is planned for 2023? David Parker, Product Manager, offers his perspective.

What are the biggest platform developments from this year? How are needs determined and defined?

The platform has made tremendous strides since last year. In 2022, we added a long list of high-impact functionalities, including the addition of the EPEA Generic datasets, a new 3D viewer tab, new dashboards and benchmarking, a new private area register, enhanced subscription management, and not to mention, an entire UX overhaul. It’s been a BIG year! New dashboards in 2022 We define our roadmap by listening to customers and looking ahead to evolving industry trends and regulations. We maintain a laser focus on our core mission; to create a circular economy in the built environment by establishing new forms of value, eliminating waste, and avoiding needless resource consumption.

Why is linking the certified EPEA Generic database to the Madaster platform so valuable for the platform’s users?

Material and product databases typically include environmental data but most have insufficient amounts of circularity data, meaning circularity insights are very challenging to obtain. The EPEA Generic database solves this issue by being the first of its kind to offer users complete circularity and environmental information on the most common generic products in the built environment. The database also has several datasets, one for each Madaster country, meaning our users have access to country-specific insights. This incredibly powerful, and much more representative of the real world, as identical buildings in different countries will report different statistics due to national variations in material sourcing, transportation, and end of life scenarios.

In January 2023, the platform will release an advanced 3D viewer. What visual insights will this provide to users?

The new payable “3D Insights” feature is really exciting. For the first time, users will be able to visualize their 3D models in terms of circularity and environmental KPIs. For instance, a user can view the top 10 most circular materials and see exactly where they are applied within their own building. A user can also filter to see which materials will be available for reuse or recycling at the building’s end of life. Additionally, users can visualize a multitude of environmental impacts and see a ranked list of the top 10 materials in their building with the largest embodied carbon or carbon sequestration. Due to its intuitive 3D visualization, the new feature enables all user groups, especially non-construction specialists, to easily pinpoint the design’s best and worst aspects with respect to circularity and environmental impact. 3D insights in January 2023

What different types of users does Madaster have? Is that the reason for developing a customizable user interface?

We have very diverse user groups including asset owners, project developers, public authorities, architects, builders, producers, consultants, financial service providers, demolition companies, and education & research institutions. With such a multitude, it’s quite challenging to anticipate what each user group will want out of the platform, especially as we add more KPIs. To solve this, in Q1, we will enable users to create custom performance dashboards which are applied to every asset they view. We believe this will be tremendously valuable since each user will be able to focus on the KPIs vital to their role by hiding any they deem as non essential. Customizable performance dashboards in Q1 2023

Does the Madaster platform offer benchmarking capabilities?

At the moment, users can benchmark against all other assets in their account, at the building- and shearing layer-level. They can evaluate an asset in terms of material intensity, circularity, detachability, embodied carbon, and financial value. In 2023, new benchmarks will be added to the platform so users can gauge the performance of their assets in comparison to national targets set by building councils, as well as against all other assets registered in the entire Madaster platform.

What else is on the roadmap for 2023?

First thing January, we will release our new pricing model and the previously described new 3D Insights feature. Next, early in Q1, we will release our redesigned Material Passport, which incorporates the dashboards built in 2022. The passport will be dynamic, meaning users can choose which KPIs they are interested in and export these into a 1-pager, executive summary, or in-depth passport. The 1-pager will also include a shareable link which can be added to social media posts so users can easily broadcast their projects. In Q1, as previously mentioned, we will also enable users to create and customize performance dashboards. Beyond Q1, we will focus our efforts on a wide variety of functionalities that advance the Madaster platform. We will align the platform with the requirements of the EU Taxonomy and CB’23’ for easy reporting and compliance. We will develop new Track and Trace funcitonality so producers can gain insights into where their products are being used, which will be a unique selling point for Madaster over others in the market. Our financial tab will be further developed to incorporate country-specific values, including: material prices, demolition, transport and processing costs, inflation, and other construction indices. We will further develop our buidling process tab so users can compare the circularity and environmental impact of renovation vs. demolition and new construction. We will also enhance our enrichment process UX to make uploading BIM files as easy and seamless as possible. The platform will also gain the previously described benchmarks and more extensive insights at account- and folder-level, which will be very powerful for large asset owners. Lastly, we will continue to add more data so our users can further enrich their assets. New dynamic Material Passports in Q1 2023

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