Hey, Catherine! If you’re in Revit already, Insight is a good starting point for early phase energy modeling; I’d be curious to hear your experience using it in comparison to cove.tool - I know both tools have loyal followings!
For early phase whole life (embodied and operational) carbon analysis, there are a number of free whole life carbon tools out there -
- Carbon Avoided Retrofit Estimator (CARE) from Architecture 2030 (useful for comparing new builds to retrofits and understanding the climate benefits of preserving existing buildings.
- Early Phase Integrated Carbon (EPIC) Assessment - a ‘choose your own adventure’ tool that allows you to compare a variety of embodied, operational, and landscape measures (full disclosure - I help develop this tool!).
Neither EPIC nor CARE are energy modeling tools, but both allow design teams to translate the results from energy models (fuel mix and EUI) into carbon terms. I’m also attaching a super useful graphic from the recent RMI/USGBC report on embodied carbon in buildings - a decision tree describing when to use each embodied carbon tool:
