Application of life-cycle assessment to early stage building design for reduced embodied environmental impacts

Basbagill, John P.; Flager, Forest; Lepech, Michael D.; Fischer, Martin

doi:10.1016/j.buildenv.2012.11.009

Cited by 474 publications

(263 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…LCA is performed within the framework of ISO14040 [6] considering its four established phases [7,30]. This study is carried out within the framework provided by the standards and considered all the phases as described below.…”

Section: Life Cycle Methodological Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Nonetheless, several studies have been carried out on the concept of whole building LCA, with each having different techniques and approaches, as well as varied goal and scope [2,6,7,9,25,26]. Some of the studies address the use of BIM for LCA [16,17].…”

Section: Existing Literature On Bim and Lcamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The sector has become a major target for environmental improvement as it accounts for more than 40% of total energy consumption and natural resources, with about 33% of global CO2 emission coming from the sector [2] Whilst these alarming figures point out to a need for holistic efforts towards investigating and preventing environmental impacts due to buildings, fortunately, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), which involves cradle to grave analysis of products, is arguably the best method of evaluating impacts of a particular product on the environment [3] Nonetheless, despite the claim that clear interaction between buildings' lifecycle stages calls for such global methodology like LCA [4], it has been rather applied to other products, with little application to whole building analysis. This is due to the complex nature of buildings' inventory analysis, inadequate inventory data, its long life span, and so on [3,5] Previous research efforts towards estimating building lifecycle impacts have been dedicated to individual buildings in forms of offices, residential and industrial buildings [6,7,8,9].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As the year 2016 has been earmarked as the period when BIM would be fully adopted for public procurements in the UK, with further cut down in emission target [14,15], a number of studies have highlighted the potential benefits and possibility of using BIM for lifecycle environmental assessment of buildings [7,16,17]. However, despite the growing adoption of BIM across the UK and increasing call for early stage simulation of different design and construction options to predict their environmental impacts, before actual site works, there has been no standard guideline for implementing whole building lifecycle assessment with the aid of BIM.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Life cycle environmental performance of material specification: a BIM-enhanced comparative assessment

Ajayi

Oyedele

Ceranic

et al. 2015

International Journal of Sustainable Building Technology and Ur

121

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The study aimed at evaluating the extent to which different building materials specifications affect building lifecycle environmental performance, using a Building Information Modelling (BIM) enhanced lifecycle assessment (LCA) methodology. A combination of Revit Architecture which is a BIM based design and analysis tool, an energy simulation tool known as Green Building Studio (GBS) and LCA tool known as ATHENA Impact Estimator were used for the assessment. The LCA was carried out on a life case study of a 2100m 2 one-storey school building as well as its variability analysis, by varying materials specifications in terms of whole building materials. The lifecycle performance of the buildings was primarily evaluated in terms of its Global Warming Potential (GWP) and Health Impacts.The findings of the study show that irrespective of materials used, buildings that are based on renewable energy perform better than those based on fossil fuels over its lifecycle. In terms of building materials, both environmental and health preference of buildings congruently range from timber, brick/block, steel, to Insulated Concrete Foams, in a descending order. The study suggests that as buildings become more energy-efficient during operational stages, serious attention needs to be given to their embodied impacts.The study lay out a methodological framework that could be adopted by industry practitioners in evaluating lifecycle environmental impacts of different BIM modelled materials options at building conception stage. This has the tendency of ensuring that most lifecycle environmentally beneficial materials combinations are selected during specification and construction.

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Section: Life Cycle Methodological Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Existing Literature On Bim and Lcamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Life cycle environmental performance of material specification: a BIM-enhanced comparative assessment

Ajayi

Oyedele

Ceranic

et al. 2015

International Journal of Sustainable Building Technology and Ur

121

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“…The complexity of computing the EE is due to the unique nature of buildings, multiple functionality, on-site assembly, and long design life [17,18]. Also, the data required to make an accurate assessment are difficult to obtain.…”

Section: Embodied Energy In Buildingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developing a Calculation Tool for Embodied Energy in the Conceptual Design Phase

Maassarani¹,

Khalifa²,

Mohareb³

2017

IJCA

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Energy performance of a building is one of the main features to be assessed and optimized in sustainable building designs. While progress in reducing the operating energy is being achieved, the embodied energy remains somewhat high. The building industry is currently using around 40-50% of global raw material that is responsible for the 40-45% of the total worldwide carbon dioxide emissions.Embodied energy and carbon calculations are rather complex since they are related to different combinations of material whether in the structure or the finishing material. Reducing the embodied energy can be done by either varying the structural design, increasing the service of the building, or using recycled material. Conventionally, these calculations are not strictly part of the designer's work during the conceptual design phase; hence, if done, they are calculated during the design evaluation phase when the design decisions have been already set, and change in design decisions is not easy. Under most circumstances, the environmental impact assessment of designs was performed by sustainability consultants who may not be present in many projects. It is better to bring the embodied energy calculations to the conceptual design phase so both the architect and the structural engineer can make informed design decisions for a more sustainable building. Many organizations are using in-house tools to make these calculations, but the tools used are not flexible enough to be adopted by a wide variety of users. A better way is to use the functionality of Building Information Modelling (BIM) software by developing plug-in tools that are simple to use in early stages of conceptual design. This paper explores two existing plug-ins that function with Rhinoceros (Rhino) and Grasshopper (GH) software, where they define a set of parameters to evaluate the embodied energy in the structure of the building. The aim of this paper is to develop a tool that can be used more easily and that adds to the existing parameters to give a more accurate estimation of the building's embodied energy during the conceptual design stage. For this purpose, a comparative analysis will be performed of both plug-ins to determine their best features and to add the missing components concerning the embodied energy of finishing material. The proposed tool will be developed using visual basic scripting language to be used with Rhino and GH. Finally, the prototype will be open sourced for testing and verification while conclusions concerning the limitations and future development opportunities will be discussed.

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Building for Climate Change: Examining the Environmental Impacts of the Built Environment

Mannan,

Al‐Ghamdi

2023

Sustainable Cities in a Changing Climate

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Application of life-cycle assessment to early stage building design for reduced embodied environmental impacts

Cited by 474 publications

References 24 publications

Life cycle environmental performance of material specification: a BIM-enhanced comparative assessment

Life cycle environmental performance of material specification: a BIM-enhanced comparative assessment

Developing a Calculation Tool for Embodied Energy in the Conceptual Design Phase

Building for Climate Change: Examining the Environmental Impacts of the Built Environment

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