BIM-based Life Cycle Assessment Research Articles

Parametric BIM-based life cycle assessment framework for optimal sustainable design

The construction sector is liable for a sizable amount of CO2 emissions and waste. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is considered one of the crucial tools that aids in evaluating the impacts of construction emissions. This research aims to quantify the life cycle impacts of the initial and recurrent embodied emissions, operating and reuse/disposal emissions, and utilizing Building Information Modeling (BIM) for a more holistic life cycle approach. The research proposes a parametric BIM-based LCA framework for quantifying the environmental impacts and evaluating the effects of material selection for both embodied and operating emissions. In addition, it considers the different reuse scenarios and percentages and their effect on both the embodied and operating impacts. The proposed framework consists of five main modules: data acquisition module, operating and embodied emissions module, life cycle assessment module, optimization module, and decision-making module. This parametric assessment can be applied for both the conventional and circular approach impacts. For the decision-making process, the resulting emissions are optimized utilizing the Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA-II) and evaluated through an LCA and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) methodology for the material selection. A case study of a residential villa in Cairo is worked out to illustrate the key features of the proposed framework. This assessment analyzes the building materials’ characteristics and efficiency investigating the external walls, internal walls, floors, roofs, and windows design possibilities, and uses visual programming to control the resulting emissions for a more flexible approach. By comparing the integrated LCA and DEA models three optimum design solutions, the conventional approach develops design solutions of higher embodied Global Warming Potential (GWP) than the circular approach. However, it develops lower operating GWP with better applied U-values. The circularity approach employment has reduced the efficiency of the operating GWP due to utilizing materials with high heat transmittance ability.

Retrofit of Building Façade Using Precast Sandwich Panel: An Integrated Thermal and Environmental Assessment on BIM-Based LCA

The study conducts a comprehensive life cycle assessment (LCA) of precast sandwich panels by integrating operational and embodied phases detailing thermal efficiency and environmental impacts. The analytical regression model is developed for climatic diversity and design variables using the energy rating tool FirstRate5 to compare with a conventional brick veneer construction. LCA is performed on the building information modeling (BIM) platform to connect operational energy and express the relative embodied impacts of insulation constituents, compressive strength, reinforcement, and mix design. Monte Carlo simulation shows significant advantages of concrete sandwich panels in reducing operational H/C loads over building service life. LCA reveals a 100 mm thick external precast concrete wall with 50% fly ash reduces CO2 emission and energy demand by 54.7% and 75.9% consecutively against the benchmark. Moreover, it comprises 84.31% of the total building mass, accountable for only 53.27% of total CO2 emission and 27.25% of energy demand, which is comparatively lower than other materials. In the case of selecting lining insulation, a broader benefit is identified for extruded polystyrene (XPS) and expanded polystyrene (EPS) boards due to their relative weight, thickness, and environmental impacts. Representative equations of energy efficiency and impact assessment will assist in adopting sandwich panels for new construction and refurbishment with relative dimensions.

A BIM-based LCA tool for sustainable building design during the early design stage

PurposeA robust method in environmental load assessment of buildings is urgently required to reduce the environmental burden of the construction industry. While the industry utilizes the life cycle assessment (LCA) method to assess environmental impacts of detailed designs, the implementation of changes at that late stage of development is often expensive and undesirable. On the other hand, during the early design stages, the LCA method is severely limited by the lack of information available, e.g., uncertainty about final materials to be used. This research study investigates how building information modeling (BIM) can facilitate LCA analysis at an early design stage.Design/methodology/approachA literature review is conducted to establish a framework for BIM and LCA integration, which creates the foundation for the development of a new BIM-based LCA tool. The tool is empirically evaluated on a large case study of a residential building in Denmark.FindingsCase study results show that the new tool facilitates decision-making in an integrated design process, providing reliable LCA results on an early stage model, while avoiding intermediate manual input by the end user in contrast to other commercial LCA tools.Originality/valueA first prototype of a BIM-based tool is demonstrated, which allows professionals, small architectural companies, students and researchers to calculate the environmental loads of the building in the early design stage in an automated, transparent and time-saving manner.

GreenBIM, a BIM-based LCA integration using a circular approach based on the example of the Swiss sustainability standard Minergie-ECO

There exist hundreds of sustainability certifications for the built environment. The number is expected to rise as the focus on environmental issues increases. However, these certificates are usually carried further through linear-based approaches in a late building phase. They are disconnected from the design practice, while, as shown by the ‘MacLeamy Curve’, design decisions made earlier in the building process strongly affect positive outcomes. As a result, decision-making metrics are limited and the related improvements of the building concepts are minimized. There is an opportunity to bring forward sustainability certifications metrics and benchmarks in a digital built environment. Here, a proof-of-concept of such a circular approach is presented, using the Swiss sustainability standard Minergie-ECO as an example. Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) calculations are implemented in a digital form, namely Building Information Modelling (BIM). The BIM-LCA integration demonstrates that current prevalent linear approaches can be further refined and turned into circular ones. Hence, the time and effort for their implementation are reduced, and decision-making information is brought in a structured and visual form. Moreover, architects and planners are enabled to apply sustainability metrics in their processes.

BIM-based LCA as a comprehensive method for the refurbishment of existing dwellings considering environmental compatibility, energy efficiency, and profitability: A case study in China

In the light of special attention of world governments to a viable and sustainable decarbonization way of the existing building stock, this article considered the feasibility of using a method of Building Information Modeling (BIM)-enabled Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for the refurbishment in terms of environmental compatibility, energy efficiency, and profitability. An existing residential building in Nanjing was chosen as a case study. The paper investigated the environmental, energy, and economic efficiency of the case building hypothetically refurbished to the Passive House (PH) and “low energy building” (LEB) technologies. The analysis was made based on real construction and energy consumption data, monitored over three years. Also, a comparison of the environmental, energy-efficient, and economic feasibility of two hypothetical models refurbished to the PH and LEB technologies is considered. The results show that BIM-enabled LCA is a powerful tool for refurbishing existing residential buildings due to a comprehensive assessment of environmental compatibility, energy efficiency, and profitability. According to the results, special attention should be paid to reducing cooling loads, using materials with a high recycling rate and low cost, reducing the thickness of the insulation layer, using polyvinyl chloride (PVC) windows with movable sunshades, and setting horizontal and vertical greenery systems.

Environmental benchmarking of building typologies through BIM-based combinatorial case studies

Integrated life-cycle assessment (LCA) tools have emerged as decision-making support for BIM practitioners during the design stage of sustainable projects. However, differences between methodologies applied for determining the environmental impact of buildings produce significant variations in the results obtained, making them difficult to be compared. In this study, a methodology is defined for generating environmental benchmarks for building typologies through a combination of BIM-based LCA tools and machine learning techniques. When applied to an 11-story residential building typology with 92 dwellings by varying the constructive solutions of façades, partitions, roof and thermal insulation materials, results fall within a range from 360 to 430 kgCO2eq/m2. The Random Forest (RF) algorithm is successfully applied for identifying the most decisive variables in the analysis (partitions and façades), and shows signs of being useful for predicting the environmental impact of future constructions and to be applied to the analysis of greater scale urban zones.

Developing an automated BIM-based life cycle assessment approach for modularly designed high-rise buildings

Modular construction has attracted increasing attention due to its energy and environmental benefits. Digital technologies such as building information modelling (BIM) have also been explored to generate and manage data through the lifecycle of buildings. Although research has been performed in the area of integrating BIM and modular construction, BIM-based automated lifecycle assessment (LCA) of prefabricated buildings remains unexplored. This study therefore aims to develop a BIM-based LCA method for prefabricated buildings incorporating different assessment levels with unique system boundaries and functional units. The developed approach can support automated assessments through all lifecycle phases of a prefabricated building. It is achieved through an automated process of creating parameters to merge LCA data into the building model, systematic zoning, model setup and impact estimation. This approach is applied to evaluate the energy and environmental performances of a case building in Hong Kong. The case study validated the efficiency of the developed BIM-based LCA method in providing a systematic and detailed assessment of modularly designed buildings. This study extends the knowledge in automated BIM-based LCA by addressing specific characteristics of prefabrication and promotes the incorporation of comprehensive and detailed LCA data into BIM models for improved design robustness and holistic performances of buildings. This validated approach will enhance the willingness of designers to apply LCA during the design stages for minimizing the energy and environmental impacts of both new and renovated buildings with prefabrication.

BIM Integrated LCA for Promoting Circular Economy towards Sustainable Construction: An Analytical Review

Sustainable construction is widely regarded as one of the best decisions to reduce the environmental impact of the buildings. Numerous scientific efforts have been devoted to promoting sustainability by adopting different techniques such as life cycle assessment (LCA) and building information modeling (BIM). The recent circular economy (CE) agenda is prioritizing in different sectors including construction due to increasing concern on the materials efficiency and resources consumption. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the implications, considerations, contributions and challenges of BIM integrated LCA and the CE adoption in the industry by critically analyzing the recent literature. A scientometric analysis was applied to the selected studies to show the knowledge among BIM, LCA and CE relationships. With a comprehensive analysis of major challenges and opportunities of LCA and BIM for construction sustainability, key drivers for sustainable building design were identified and analyzed. A prospective integrated framework for CE adoption into BIM-based LCA of buildings and an evaluation method are proposed by analyzing the contemporary issues. It is believed that the analyzed critical issues, identified future research direction and proposed frameworks and this methodology should contribute to effective implementation of CE into the building for promoting sustainable construction.

BIM-based LCA and energy analysis for optimised sustainable building design in Ghana

Integration of Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is regarded as useful for making design decisions regarding the environmental and health impacts of building products and materials. This research aimed at studying the process of BIM-LCA integration to assist designers in making sustainable material and product selection decisions in Ghana. A guidance framework for implementation of BIM-LCA supported by energy analysis has been developed to aid optimisation of sustainable design solutions based on simulations using Autodesk Revit as a BIM authoring tool, Green Building Studio and Tally to perform energy and LCA simulations on a hypothetical two-bedroom single-family house. The research considers both operational and embodied carbon effects of the design solution. The framework aligns with the RIBA Plan of Work 2013 Stages 0–2 (i.e. Strategic definition, Preparation and briefing, and Concept design) and presents a systematic approach for BIM-based LCA estimation for the early design stages using the Business Process Modelling Notation. The paper proposes a generic approach which has the potential to incorporate LCA as an integral part to the BIM-enabled design development process. This assists designers in decision-making that consider environmental impacts of materials and energy consumption as part of sustainable building design considerations.

Integrating BIM-Based LCA and Building Sustainability Assessment

With the increasing concerns about building environmental impacts, building information modelling (BIM) has been used to perform different kinds of sustainability analysis. Among the most popular are the life cycle assessment (LCA) and building sustainability assessment (BSA). However, the integration of BIM-based LCA in BSA methods has not been adequately explored yet. This study addresses the relation between LCA and BSA within the BIM context for the Portuguese context. By performing an LCA for a Portuguese case study, a set of sustainability criteria from SBTool were simultaneous assessed during the process. The possibility of integrating BIM-based LCA into BSA methods can include more life cycle stages in the sustainability assessment and allow for normalising and producing more comparable results. BIM automates and connects different stages of the design process and provides information for multi-disciplinary data storage. However, there are still some constraints, such as different BSA/LCA databases and the necessity to manually introduce the embodied life cycle impacts of building materials. The scope of the BSA analysis can be expanded by integrating a complete LCA and be fostered by the support of BIM, effectively improving building sustainability according to local standards.

Integrated BIM-Based LCA for the Entire Building Process Using an Existing Structure for Cost Estimation in the Swiss Context

The building sector has a significant potential to reduce the material resource demand needed for construction and therefore, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Digitalization can help to make use of this potential and improve sustainability throughout the entire building’s life cycle. One way to address this potential is through the integration of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) into the building process by employing Building Information Modeling (BIM). BIM can reduce the effort needed to carry out an LCA, and therefore, facilitate the integration into the building process. A review of current industry practice and scientific literature shows that companies are lacking the incentive to apply LCA. If applied, there are two main approaches. Either the LCA is performed in a simplified way at the beginning of the building process using imprecise techniques, or it is done at the very end when all the needed information is available, but it is too late for decision-making. One reason for this is the lack of methods, workflows and tools to implement BIM-LCA integration over the whole building development. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to develop an integrated BIM-LCA method for the entire building process by relating it to an established workflow. To avoid an additional effort for practitioners, an existing structure for cost estimation in the Swiss context is used. The established method is implemented in a tool and used in a case study in Switzerland to test the approach. The results of this study show that LCA can be performed continuously in each building phase over the entire building process using existing Building Information Modeling (BIM) techniques for cost estimation. The main benefit of this approach is that it simplifies the application of LCA in the building process and therefore gives incentives for companies to apply it. Moreover, the re-work caused by the need for re-entering data and the usage of many different software tools that characterize most of the current LCA practices is minimized. Furthermore, decision-making, both at the element and building levels, is supported.

Development of a BIM-based Environmental and Economic Life Cycle Assessment tool

Currently, the built environment is one of the sectors that contribute the most to environmental impacts worldwide. As a result, the construction industry is increasingly adopting technologies and methodologies that promote the development of sustainable constructions, i.e. constructions that have low environmental, economic, and social impacts. Focusing on the environmental and economic impact of the construction, this research integrates the building information modelling (BIM) technology with the life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle costing (LCC) methodologies for the environmental and economic assessment of buildings. Building on the BIM-LCA/LCC framework and on the information delivery manual (IDM) and model view definition (MVD) for the BIM-LCA/LCC analysis, a BIM-based Environmental and Economic Life Cycle Assessment (BIMEELCA) tool is developed by the authors and detailed in this article. The BIMEELCA tool is used to support the decision-making process during early phases of a project and verify the feasibility of conducting automatic BIM-based LCA and LCC analyses in high-rise projects. A 250 m high-rise apartment, hotel, and office building is used to validate the usefulness of the tool at the early design stage. This case study demonstrates the feasibility to perform an automatic LCA and LCC analysis at this design stage by inserting in the model semantic information from generic databases. In the end, the benefits and limitations of the BIMEELCA tool are discussed. This research is expected to contribute to the promotion of semantically rich BIM models and the development of tailor-made BIM objects’ libraries specific to the needs of companies.

BIM-based life cycle assessment and life cycle costing of an office building in Western Europe

The main aim of this research is to enhance the integration of life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle costing (LCC) methodologies with building information modelling (BIM), as existing approaches still have limitations (e.g. interoperability issues, non-editable databases). For that purpose, an automatic LCA/LCC analysis within a BIM-based environment is proposed. A BIM-based environmental and economic life cycle assessment (BIMEELCA) prototype tool was developed by the authors to improve the integration of BIM with LCA and LCC. Moreover, a pilot case study located in the Netherlands was used to validate the work developed in this research, thus demonstrating the usefulness of this approach for the construction industry. This study unveiled the potential of BIM-based simulations for the assessment of the environmental and economic impacts of buildings by integrating semantic information in the model. The work presented in this research is expected to contribute to the development of automatic sustainability simulations, creation of tailor-made BIM objects’ libraries, and use of historical data contained within data-rich models for predictive analyses (i.e. analyses that identify the most suitable solutions based on the data from previous projects).

Evaluation of BIM-based LCA results for building design

Abstract Digital tools based on Building Information Modelling (BIM) provide the potential to facilitate environmental performance assessments of buildings. Various tools that use a BIM model for automatic quantity take-off as basis for Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) have been developed recently. This paper describes the first application of such a BIM-LCA tool to evaluate the embodied global warming potential (GWP) throughout the whole design process of a real building. 34 states of the BIM model are analysed weekly. The results show that the embodied GWP during the design phase is twice as high as for the final building. These changes can be mainly attributed to the designers' approach of using placeholder materials that are refined later, besides other reasons. As such, the embodied GWP is highly overestimated and a BIM-based environmental assessment during the design process could be misleading and counterproductive. Finally, three alternatives to the established automatic quantity take-off are discussed for future developments.

BIM-based LCA assessment of seismic strengthening solutions for reinforced concrete precast industrial buildings

Construction sector contracts have relevant socioeconomic importance in contrast with its high environmental impact due to the intensive consumption of natural and energy resources throughout the buildings’ service life. Thus, this sector has been object of actions aiming the promotion of low carbon construction and refurbishment given its potential to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by applying more sustainable materials and techniques. With the development of the building information modeling (BIM) methodology, it is possible to develop the different project specialities in an integrated and collaborative platform since its initial phase, also facilitating the integration of life cycle assessment (LCA). The present work aims to evaluate and compare the environmental impacts of prefabricated concrete elements of new construction and solutions of seismic reinforcement of these elements in an existing building, as well as their costs, through LCA methodology and life cycle cost (LCC). For this purpose, the BIM model of an industrial building with a prefabricated concrete structure was developed and the respective LCA was achieved. It was considered the model of a similar building with 30 years of existence, whose structural calculation not considered the correct strengthening to face seismic actions. The respective seismic reinforcement solution was analyzed, and the corresponding LCA was accomplished. For each case, the LCC was calculated. The analysis of the two buildings highlighted the importance of rehabilitation in the construction sector, since the environmental impacts and the associated costs are reduced when compared to the construction of a new building.

Consistent BIM-led LCA during the entire building design process

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a suitable method to analyse the environmental impact of buildings’ design choices. However, the nature of the building design process leads to a dilemma when applying LCA in early phases. LCA can be fully performed only in the later design phases when complete information is available, but it is too costly to make changes. As a result, LCA is scarcely employed as a decision-making tool. Building Information Modelling (BIM) can assist LCA during the design process. So far, two different approaches are usually adopted to perform the BIM-based LCA of buildings. The first approach concerns performing LCA with a detailed BIM at the end of the building design process. The second approach involves simplified methodologies for early design stages with uncertain data. This study proposes a novel approach for applying a consistent BIM-led LCA from the early design stages to the detailed ones based on lower to higher level of accuracy. Since the BIM elements are specified with increasing level of detail in each design phase, the method uses different LCA databases for the Level of Developments (LODs) of the building elements. Accordingly, LCA calculations are based on mixing the databases in every design phase. This is possible as long as the databases use identical background data. The framework helps to provide consistent information for decision-making throughout the whole design process, both in the later design phases and early ones with a simplified BIM.