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For some time now—and increasingly so—material decisions have been moving to the top of the to-do list for architecture and engineering firms. What was once a negotiation between cost, performance, design, and regulatory constraints, with sustainability treated as desirable but not essential, is shifting. Carbon limits are becoming stricter and non-negotiable, and material selection no longer follows design decisions; it helps define them at their core. Early system and material choices shape how carbon requirements are met and how downstream risk is managed.
As this shift takes hold, a silent pain point becomes visible: without clear, well-organized material data, projects start on the wrong footing. Early, compliance-driven decisions depend on knowing which options are viable and how they compare. When that information is fragmented or outdated, teams lose the ability to evaluate alternatives, justify choices, and move forward with confidence, adding unnecessary friction to later stages of the project.
What are the hidden costs that quietly undermine projects before construction even begins?
Time that could support decisions is instead spent searching for and reconciling material information.
When material data is not clearly structured or centralized, everyday work slows down. Teams spend time locating updated product information, checking which data and assumptions were previously used, and reconciling differences across spreadsheets, PDFs, emails, and models.
Recent industry research in the AEC sector, including analyses from Deloitte and broader industry findings published in 2025, focused on operational inefficiencies, shows that a substantial share of team time is absorbed by coordination and information retrieval rather than by design or technical analysis. This friction does not appear as a single project issue, but slowly erodes productivity across teams and projects over time.
Analyses tend to be repeated when their results are not systematized or carried forward beyond a single project.
The performance, cost, and carbon impact of materials are typically assessed project by project using EPDs, LCA tools, and technical documentation, as these criteria enable objective comparison and early filtering options. When the results of these assessments remain scattered across project-specific files and tools, rather than consolidated into a shared, reusable resource or workspace, similar materials or systems are evaluated again and again.
This pattern has been identified across the industry by the Get It Right Initiative, which estimates that 10–25% of construction costs are lost to avoidable errors rooted in poorly coordinated and communicated design information rather than technical complexity. When analysis does not carry beyond a single project, it must be repeated—requiring additional effort to reach the same level of technical and regulatory confidence.
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Fragmented material data can slow permitting and unnecessarily disrupt project momentum.
Across Europe, carbon-emissions compliance is increasingly tied to planning approval and permitting. In Denmark, for example, since 2023 compliance with life-cycle-based carbon limits has been a requirement for approving new buildings under the national building regulations (Bygningsreglementet). When material data is fragmented or difficult to retrieve, the effort to demonstrate compliance can delay the entire process.
During these delays, parts of the project team may be unable to progress as planned: work stalls, fees are deferred, and schedules stretch. The cost is not only administrative friction, but a direct financial impact while the project remains on hold.
Material expertise is built through experience, but rarely accumulated in a structured way.
Beyond formal analysis, many material decisions rely on accumulated experience: what worked on site, what caused issues, and which trade-offs proved acceptable under real constraints. This knowledge develops through discussion and trial across projects, but often remains informal—held by individuals rather than captured in shared, structured material records or collections.
When this experience is not documented alongside material data, it becomes scattered and difficult to access. As projects close and teams change, the reasoning behind past choices fades from view. New team members often inherit conclusions without context, slowing their ability to act with confidence. Without continuity, organizations end up relearning and re-explaining what they already know.
Projects may comply, but often without reaching their full technical or environmental potential.
When material knowledge is not consolidated and data remains incomplete or difficult to compare, teams can arrive at solutions that meet requirements—but often within a narrower set of viable options. This tends to result in conservative decisions, late-stage adjustments, or trade-offs elsewhere in the design, with familiar or easier-to-justify options often prevailing by default.
The consequences extend beyond cost overruns or material waste. They often result in less efficient system-level solutions, where carbon targets are met through greater complexity, effort, and higher-than-necessary costs. Fragmented information may not prevent regulatory compliance, but it does limit the ability to achieve consistent, efficient, and truly optimized environmental outcomes.
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By experiencing it firsthand, design teams at firms such as Henning Larsen have reaffirmed that sustainable progress depends not only on better materials, but on those materials being backed by robust, comparable information—a point the firm has summed up simply as “the combination of shared knowledge and solid data.”
At scale, addressing the costs described above requires working from a single, reliable source of material data. This is where revalu fits in: providing a common point of reference through an open, continuously updated library of verified materials, combined with collaborative workspaces that keep material decisions accessible, traceable, and reusable beyond a single project.
See how design teams use revalu to centralize material data and reduce early-stage risk.
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