Extract

The vast majority of scientists, building industry representatives, and non-governmental
organizations agree that a robust method in environmental load assessment of buildings needs to be
implemented to reduce the environmental burden of the construction industry significantly and to meet
the required environmental standards. So far, the industry utilizes the life cycle assessment (LCA) method
to assess the environmental impacts of the detailed design; yet, the implementation of changes at that
stage of development is often expensive and unadvisable. On the other hand, during the early design
stages, the LCA method is restrained by the information provided by the design and the uncertainty of
material decisions. To support sustainable design decisions during early design, the aim of this research
study is primarily to investigate how the use of available methods and tools, such as Building Information
Modelling (BIM), can facilitate the process of conducting LCA analysis. A literature review is conducted
that enable us to establish a framework for BIM and LCA integration, which creates the foundation for the
development of a new BIM-based LCA tool. The first prototype of the tool is demonstrated in this paper
and empirically evaluated on a large case study of a residential building in Denmark.

Keywords: Life Cycle Assessment (LCA); Building Information Modelling (BIM); BIM-based LCA; Early
Design Stage.

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