Global design firm Sasaki has released an early-stage carbon goal and benchmarking tool to let property designers experiment with approaches before committing to final stages.

The company said that the new product, Carbon Conscience 2.0, "supports district-scale, early-phase, whole-project-life-cycle analysis inclusive of site and building data."

The version 2 suffix refers to a previous beta version. It "incorporates feedback from experts, users, and both academic and professional peer reviewers; and represents the first full 'gamma version' of the Carbon Conscience platform," the company said. "By providing Carbon Conscience to the design community as a free and publicly accessible tool, Sasaki hopes to empower designers and planners with data to more effectively advocate for low-carbon design, early in the design process."