The Rise of AI-Enabled Startups in Creating a Low-Carbon Built Environment

The accelerating climate emergency demands urgent transformation of the built environment, a sector simultaneously responsible for substantial greenhouse gas emissions and highly vulnerable to climatic impacts. Rising global temperatures, extreme weather events, and increasing resource demands necessitate a holistic rethinking of building design, materials, and urban planning. This paper explores the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) as a catalyst for energy efficiency, circularity, and resilience in buildings. AI-driven tools—from generative design and predictive maintenance to digital twins and automated material flow analytics—enable optimization across the design, construction, operation, and end-of-life phases, reducing both operational and embodied carbon. Crucially, AI lowers entry barriers for startups, fostering an entrepreneurial ecosystem capable of delivering innovative, adaptive, and sustainable solutions in civil engineering. By integrating technological, regulatory, financial, and behavioral strategies, AI-enabled startups can accelerate the transition to a low-carbon, circular, and climate-resilient built environment. This paper argues that coordinated, multi-disciplinary action is essential: without it, the sector risks perpetuating vulnerable, carbon-intensive infrastructure; with it, civil engineering can evolve into a dynamic driver of sustainable innovation.