Getting Environmental Information from Construction Cost Databases: Applications in Brazilian Courses and Environmental Assessment

Abstract

The traditional decision-making process in construction is still driven by factors such as cost and time, not adequately addressing indicators to control their environmental impacts. So, how to improve environmental communication to incorporate sustainable building practices. The incorporation of environmental indicators may enlarge the scope of construction management tools. In the case of cost databases, widely used in the construction sector, this action can contribute to the communication and dissemination of environmental practices. This paper mapped 24 indicators from construction cost databases to assess their ability to communicate and disseminate environmental information. The research comprised: (a) a review of the use of cost bases in the environmental study, (b) identification of the most cited bases in 27 Brazilian civil engineering courses, and (c) analysis of the selected databases through of the assessment matrix, it crosses cost data versus environmental information. CYPE, TCPO, and ORSE presented performance medium, and higher results than SINAPI, BDCCM, and BCCA. The tools presented low control over environmental information, such as water and energy consumption, machine circulation and pollution generation. However, it has been observed that when adding environmental indicators, these tools can contribute significantly to disseminate good practices in its wide user base.

Environmental cost control system of manufacturing enterprises using artificial intelligence based on value chain of circular economy

“…The target is relatively limited and short term. Some enterprises focus on ecological benefits and consider the long-term development of enterprises and society (Ceptureanu et al 2018;Borja et al 2019). Taking the production process as a guide, prevent environmental costs in advance.…”

“…The business environmental protection cost measurement is based on transparent environmental costs, various cost projects' characteristics, and the selection of good measurement attributes and paths to quantify environmental cost results. Since the traditional environmental cost control model follows the 'pollution-first-pollution-oriented' approach, there are no effective defensive measures to control the environment destruction and the neglect of pollution sources, such as product production, consumption, and the entire process of generating environmental costs (Arthur et al, 2018). Undoubtedly, this will inevitably cause severe environmental pollution and adverse effects on downstream waste disposal and recycling.…”