Building information modelling (BIM) as an enabler for whole-building embodied energy and carbon calculation in early-stage building design

摘要

In recent years, there has been a worldwide effort to reduce carbon emissions from buildings.udOperational energy (OE) reduction has been the main focus of the Industry as it accounts for a greaterudproportion of carbon emissions throughout the building life and is easier than embodied energy (EE) toudpredict. However, as OE is reduced, embodied energy and carbon emissions become more significant.udFurther to this, early-stage design decisions are crucial as they determine a significant portion of audbuilding’s life-cycle impacts and cannot easily be amended later in the life of a building. Currentlyudthough, there is a lack of legislation and guidance relating to embodied carbon (EC) in buildings. This,udtogether with the UK construction industry fragmentation, creates a significant barrier to dealing withudembodied carbon at the design stage. The UK Government has mandated the implementation ofudcollaborative 3D BIM for all public-sector projects. This step aims to tackle cost and carbon emissionudreduction targets by encouraging the construction Industry to operate more collaboratively therebyudenabling greater efficiency. Since BIM empowers communications and stores information into oneudsingle digital model it has the potential to enable whole-building EC calculations. This can facilitateudEC calculation to be included in early-design stage. This paper looks at literature that relates to BIMudand EC's role in early-stage design and draws conclusions on how BIM can enable EC calculationudinclusion to early-stage design. It establishes a correlation between the matrix of information requiredudfor BIM and the information required for whole-building EC calculations. This research aims to revealudthe actors and processes involved in providing this information and suggest the project stages that ECudcalculations should take place in early-stage design. The future benefit is to inform practice and policyudto enable EC reduction through BIM in order to meet overall carbon targets.