At the ESG 2025 Non-Financial Sustainability Reporting conference organised by GovNet, Răzvan Nica, CEO of CarbonTool, delivered a clear message: if we are serious about decarbonisation, we must rethink how we design, reuse and measure the performance of existing buildings.

 

Răzvan’s starting point was simple: we cannot turn back time on the buildings we’ve already constructed, but we can change how we use them. Demolition should be the exception, not the rule. The priority is to reuse, convert and adapt existing assets to new functions and to plan for that flexibility from the earliest design stages.

 

From demolition by default to design for reuse

 

“Today, design needs to anticipate potential functional reconversions,” Răzvan stated. A building that starts life as an office may, over its lifespan, need to become a hotel, a school or a healthcare facility. If this adaptability is considered in the structural concept, the building’s useful life can be extended, its embodied carbon preserved and its financial resilience strengthened.

 

The discussion quickly moved beyond regulation and into market reality. Non-financial reporting and ESG obligations are important, but they are no longer the only drivers. Tenants, investors and end-users are increasingly demanding better performance from buildings. Material suppliers are responding with lower-carbon solutions; steel is more often recycled, cement producers are investing in decarbonisation, and construction companies are optimising site processes to cut waste and energy use.

 

A crucial point raised by Răzvan is the weight of structure in the carbon balance sheet: structural elements typically account for more than half of a building’s embodied emissions. This makes structural choices one of the most powerful levers in any decarbonisation strategy. But to use that lever effectively, stakeholders need robust, comparable data.

 

CarbonTool as the backbone of data-driven decarbonisation

 

This is precisely where CarbonTool comes in. The platform is designed to quantify and track both operational and embodied carbon, model different design and reuse scenarios, and show their impact across a building’s lifecycle. By linking design options, material choices and potential reconversions to transparent carbon and cost metrics, CarbonTool helps developers, owners and financiers move from high-level ESG commitments to actionable, data-driven decisions.

 

In line with ideas discussed at ESG 2025, such as tying building permits to green precertification, CarbonTool provides the measurement and verification backbone needed to make such policies workable in practice. Decarbonisation of existing buildings will not be achieved by reporting alone; it will be achieved by better design choices, reuse strategies and continuous performance tracking. CarbonTool is built to enable exactly that.