Abstract
The construction and building sectors are one of the highest consumers of resources and energy. Literature evidences the potentialities of the design phase towards the improvement of environmental, economic and social performance of buildings. Thus, the Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA). approach is recognized as suitable method. It is based on the “triple bottom line” principle, to calculate environmental, economic, social impacts produced by buildings during its life cycle. The present paper aims to present a methodological framework based on an LCSA, used during design stages of buildings and integrated into a building’s design technology such as Building Information Modeling (BIM). A conceptual approach to conduct the data integration and a possible workflow to integrate the LCSA into BIM is proposed. The value of the present approach is the possibility to conduct quantitative environmental, economic and social assessment of buildings to guide designers to measure and predict the building’s performance.
Highlights
The building sector is responsible, from cradle to grave, of significant environmental impacts [1]
The present paper aims to present a methodological framework based on an Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA), used during design stages of buildings and integrated into a building’s design technology such as Building Information Modeling (BIM)
Literature review evidences the scarce existence of tools or methods, that develop Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)-based studies integrated in BIM technology, nor based on “triple approach” neither based on the quantification of impacts produced by buildings during their life cycle, that can be used to guide decision-making during the design stages
Summary
The building sector is responsible, from cradle to grave, of significant environmental impacts [1]. The main barriers over the use of LCA methods applied to buildings are related to the time-consuming process and the wide amount of data required [17], especially during the phase of Life Cycle Inventory (LCI). The Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) approach aims to go beyond the limitations of the traditional LCA approach [40], by integrating environmental, economic and social dimensions. The results obtained are reported on a desegregated manner, presenting in parallel environmental, economic and social impacts This is due to the fact that the authors aim to acquire a transparent procedure to support decision-making into a sustainability perspective [46]
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