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Existing studies provide evidence that buildings and the construction sector are the largest consumers of natural resources and carry the greatest responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions. In order to reverse this situation, future challenges involve utilising the lowest amount of resources possible. To this end, building refurbishment has become a crucial strategy, given its potential to improve operational energy efficiency and to extend the life span of existing building stock, thereby reducing the environmental impact while also providing social and economic benefits to our cities. Life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) has become one of the scientific community’s most widely recognised methodologies for the evaluation of the social, economic, and environmental dimensions (triple bottom line), as it assesses sustainability using quantitative metrics. However, the implementation of this methodology to support the refurbishment process at the project stage in building design tools, such as BIM, remains scarce. One of the main obstacles lies in the difficulties of accessing building information, given that the system boundaries only cover new materials and products. Hence, this study proposes a BIM plug-in developed to support multi-dimensional building material selection in the early design steps based on the LCSA of a building during the refurbishment stage and validates its application in a case study. The results show the viability of using this tool during the early design stages and demonstrate the consistency of the results for evaluating various material and product alternatives for the refurbishment of the envelope system of a multi-family residential building. This study contributes towards the integration of decision-making by providing real-time assessment of a building envelope.

Existing studies provide evidence that buildings and the construction sector are the largest consumers of natural resources and carry the greatest responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions. In order to reverse this situation, future challenges involve utilising the least resources possible. To this end, building refurbishment becomes a crucial strategy given its potential to improve operational energy efficiency and to extend the life span of existing building stock, thereby reducing the environmental impact while also providing social and economic benefits to our cities. Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) has become one of the scientific community’s most widely recognised methodologies for the evaluation of the social, economic, and environmental dimensions (Triple Bottom Line), since it assesses sustainability using quantitative metrics. However, the implementation of this methodology to support the refurbishment process at the project stage in building design tools, such as BIM, remains scarce. One of the main obstacles lies in the difficulties of accessing the building information, given that the system boundaries only cover new materials and products. Hence, this study proposes a BIM plug-in development to support the multi-dimensional building material selection in the early design steps based on the LCSA of a building during the refurbishment stage and validates its application in a case study. The results show the viability of using this tool during the early design stages and demonstrate the consistency of the results to evaluate various material and product alternatives for the refurbishment of the envelope system of a multi-family residential building. This study contributes towards the integration of decision-making by providing real-time assessment of the building envelope.

Recent international scientific studies have described the current situation regarding CO2 emissions and have provided evidence of its catastrophic short- and medium-term consequences. The implementation of solutions of a more sustainable nature to reduce and mitigate this situation is becoming increasingly urgent. To this end, the integration of multi-dimension and life cycle assessment into the design process of buildings can help and support decision making. Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) is one of the scientific community’s most widely recognized methodologies for this purpose, combining the evaluation of the social, economic, and social dimensions (Triple Bottom Line). One of the main obstacles to implementing this methodology lies in the difficulties in automatically comparing alternative design options for the selection of different materials. To overcome this limitation, the authors developed the BIM3LCA (Building Information Modelling Three Life Cycle Assessment) tool conceived to guide the decision-making process during the early design steps. This study introduces a Building Information Modelling (BIM) plug-in development and validates its application in a case study to support the multi-criteria building material selection based on the LCSA implementation at the early design stage. Three building material alternatives for the structural system of a multi-family residential building are employed to validate this plug-in. The results show the viability of using this tool during the early design stages and demonstrates the consistency of the results regarding the use of the BIM model to conduct the LCSA. The study discusses the benefits and limitations of the BIM3LCA tool. This research contributes towards the integration of multi-dimension real-time assessment in the building design process by using semantically rich BIM models.

The Life-cycle Assessment (LCA) method and the Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) each play a crucial role in reducing buildings’ embodied environmental impacts. EPDs provide the validated and geographically representative data necessary to conduct an LCA. However, the development of EPDs in the European context is still irregular. Countries such as Germany and France have many EPDs for construction products, while other countries, such as Spain, have a limited number of EPDs and more than one operator programme, which is pointed out in the literature as a possible limiting factor for comparing results. This study aimed to examine the use of construction product EPDs manufactured in Spain, to then use as a data source to conduct a building LCA. We analysed the comparability of the results among the different EPD programmes and investigated to what extent the use of Spainߣs geographically representative construction product EPDs can contribute to conducting a building LCA, including all the materials and products that compose a building, and covering all the building life-cycle stages (product, construction, use, and end-of-life). The results showed that plasterboard and thermal insulation products have the highest numbers of EPDs in different EPD programmes. The case study analysis showed that 20% of the construction products that compose a building can potentially use these EPDs as a data source to conduct a building LCA, and 89% of those product categories include at least the product, use, or end-of-life stage modules. Finally, recommendations and challenges to improve LCA development in the architecture, engineering, construction, and operation industries were included.

The embodied impacts calculation is increasing attention in research, and the use of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is the most widely recognised method for that purpose. To support architects and engineers in the use of LCA and to overcome the complexity of calculations in design stage practice, different frameworks for assessing building sustainability propose to conduct simplified LCA methods. Nevertheless, LCA implementation in these frameworks is not completely harmonised, causing problems of inaccuracy and incomplete assessments that generate incomparability among case studies and even possible deviations to achieve carbonneutral scenarios. There, the system boundary definition is a key step. The present paper aimed to illustrate its implications, analysing the implementation of the LCA in a building envelope of a certified passive house located in Italy. Two building sustainability frameworks, DGNB and Level(s), are used to identify how the system boundary definition influences the impact assessment results. The study keeps LCA methodological assumptions (data sources, impact categories, characterisation methods, and indicators) constant to allow a comparison focused on the system boundary implications (such as the modularity principle of LCA). The results show the margins and reduction percentages that can be achieved by the two different assessment frameworks. Finally, limitations and challenges related to methodological aspects in the use of simplified LCA to calculate the impacts of a Passive House building are addressed.

The existing environmental crisis demands increased efforts to design more sustainable buildings, which means the simultaneous balance between environmental preservation, economic growth, and social well-being. This challenging objective requires holistic methods that enable a comprehensive, multi-dimension, and quantitative approach such as allows the Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA). In addition, the existing context of digital transformation in the construction and building sector is increasing the use of digital tools based on the BIM methodology to support the assessment process and integrating more dimensions to guide decision-making. The present work presents a workflow that enables the calculation of the LCSA including operational and embodied aspects. The workflow proposes the building elements that should be included in the BIM model to enable the exchange of information. The workflow is focused on the Spanish context and includes the use of Revit (as BIM modeler), Dynamo (as LCSA tool), Cypetherm (as the energy demand calculator). The proposed workflow enables us to compare different design options and building materials without much effort. The study includes findings and recommendations to reduce the effort when implementing the LCSA at the early design stages.

The role, the economic relevance and the impacts of the construction sector in the world demand, in todays society, increasing requirements in terms of sustainability and efficiency. According to ISO 15686, the LCC (Life Cycle Cost) methodology is a useful technique that allows the evaluation of comparative costs during a specific period of time, taking into account all relevant economic factors, both in terms of initial capital costs and future operating costs. However, the integration of this powerful methodology into building design tools is still poor, limiting the ability of projects to optimize the costs of buildings during their life cycle. The emergence of IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) technology in the field of architecture, engineering and construction, helped the exchange of information at the design, construction, operation and maintenance stage of a project to be shared independently of the design tools that currently exist, based on a BIM (Building Information Modeling) model that can contain relevant data related to the project/built asset [25]. According to buildingSMART, IFC are the industrys core classes (IfcDoor, IfcWindow, IfcBeam, etc.) that form the basis for globally recognized data exchange and interoperability. Therefore, this document presents a structured proposal for LCC to implement at IFC. The proposed structure has been developed based on the ISO 15686 standard, which contains the main costs according to the construction phases. With this proposal, it is expected to encourage the implementation of LCC during the design phase of the project in BIM, to achieve more economically efficient buildings. (c) 2021, The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is increasingly used for decision-making in the design process of buildings and neighbourhoods. Therefore, visualisation of LCA results to support interpretation and decision-making becomes more important. The number of building LCA tools and the published literature has increased substantially in recent years. Most of them include some type of visualisation. However, there are currently no clear guidelines and no harmonised way of presenting LCA results. In this paper, we review the current state of the art in visualising LCA results to provide a structured overview. Furthermore, we discuss recent and potential future developments. The review results show a great variety in visualisation options. By matching them with common LCA goals we provide a structured basis for future developments. Case studies combining different kinds of visualisations within the design environment, interactive dashboards, and immersive technologies, such as virtual reality, show a big potential for facilitating the interpretation of LCA results and collaborative design processes. The overview and recommendations presented in this paper provide a basis for future development of intuitive and design-integrated visualisation of LCA results to support decision-making., Building and Environment, 190, ISSN:0360-1323

Waste generated by the Construction Sector represents an environmental problem in many countries. To achieve increasingly eco-efficient waste management, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) provides an objective method for the quantification of the potential impact that waste management exerts on the environment. Traditionally, LCA has focused on the evaluation of non-prevention scenarios once the waste is generated, mainly by showing the benefits of recycling vs. disposal. Consequently, the literature has hardly addressed the positive environmental impacts caused by waste prevention, that is, the reduction at source, which constitutes the preferred option of any waste management hierarchy. Therefore, this study proposes a model to simulate the environmental performance of the prevention vs. the non-prevention of construction waste production. The model is applied to an urban system of residential buildings in Spain. The results provide evidence of the environmental benefits achieved with the prevention scenario. The prevention scenario reduces the construction waste generated in the non-prevention scenarios by up to 57%. Furthermore, it allows a potential reduction of up to 4.6 and 171.1 times the impact caused by the disposal scenario; and up to 1.7 and 8.3 times those of the recycling scenario. The model can be implemented in other contexts with other reference buildings, and enables the environmental benefits of reduction strategies to be studied, thereby providing a tool to guide and support decision-making during the building design stage. Moreover, the results obtained can help professionals and policymakers to incorporate effective construction waste prevention measures in waste prevention plans and programs. Spanish Government Spanish Government ref. BIA2017-84830-R

The built environment is significantly responsible for the current climate crisis, thus developing more sustainable projects is becoming an urgent objective. One widely recognized method that supports achieving this objective is the Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA), which enables a holistic, quantitative evaluation of building sustainability, including environmental, economic, and social dimensions. The integration of this method in digital design tools such as Building Information Modelling (BIM) facilitates its use during the building design stages. However, data granularity is not the same in every design stage, and consequently data consistency cannot be assured. Hence, the margin of unexpected variation of the results shall be avoided and robust results from the early design stages should be obtained. During the early stage, the level of details is generally limited to the element definition, while during the detailed stages, the volume of information regarding the building increased. This paper aims to fill in the informational gaps during the early design stage and align those results with a detailed data structure developed for cost estimation during the detailed stages. Thus, based on a case study analysis, we can demonstrate the consistency of the method by determining the variation of material quantities and comparing the LCSA inventory indicators during the early and detailed stages. This method can estimate more than 60% of the LCSA inventory indicators during the early design stage and the total results during detailed design stage.

The role, the economic relevance and the impacts of the construction sector in the world demand, in today’s society, increasing requirements in terms of sustainability and efficiency. According to ISO 15686, the LCC (Life Cycle Cost) methodology is a useful technique that allows the evaluation of comparative costs during a specific period of time, taking into account all relevant economic factors, both in terms of initial capital costs and future operating costs. However, the integration of this powerful methodology into building design tools is still poor, limiting the ability of projects to optimize the costs of buildings during their life cycle.

The construction sector plays an important role in moving towards a low-carbon economy. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is considered one of the most effective methods of analytically evaluating environmental profiles and an efficient tool for calculating the environmental impacts in building design-oriented methodologies, such as building information modelling (BIM). At early design stages, generic LCA databases are used to conduct the life cycle inventory (LCI), while detailed stages require more detailed data, such as environmental product declarations (EPDs), namely documents that provide accurate results and precise analyses based on LCA. Limitations are recognized when using EPDs in BIM elements at different levels of development (LOD) in the design stages, especially related to the data consistency and system boundaries of the LCA. This paper presents a method of achieving accurate LCA results, that helps with decision-making and provides support in the selection of building products and materials. The method is validated by its application in the structural concrete of an office building located in Germany. The method defines a safety factor adopted for embodied impacts (&ldquo, cradle-to-gate&rdquo, ), based on EPD results to predict the environmental impact of BIM elements at different LODs. The results obtained show that by integrating the method to conduct the LCA, the range of errors and possible inconsistencies in the LCA results can be reduced.

Current environmental problems arising from the building sector require tools to help reduce resource consumption and environmental impact. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a widely used tool to quantify the environmental impacts of the building sector. The literature recognizes the need to simplify the method application, especially to reduce and optimize data acquisition. Building Information Modeling (BIM) is defined as a virtual 3D building model which integrates with a database of their building elements. Several studies recognize that the integration of BIM and LCA can simplify data acquisition of the building as well as provide both tools with feedback. This paper reviews recent studies centered on BIM-based LCA, and also carries out a methodological analysis of their integration, focusing on the way that BIM can contribute to simplifying data input, and optimize output data and results during the LCA application in buildings. The results show the viability to develop methods based on BIM models for organizing building information used to estimate environmental and energy consumption impacts based on LCA, including: templates and plug-ins for BIM software, and the integration of automated processes combining different data and software. Reviewed papers are simplified LCA applications, mostly focused on CO2 emission calculation during the early stages of design. Finally, methodological challenges and recommendations for BIM and LCA tools are proposed

The construction and building sectors are one of the highest consumers of resources and energy. Literature evidences the potentialities of the design phase towards the improvement of environmental, economic and social performance of buildings. Thus, the Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA). approach is recognized as suitable method. It is based on the 'triple bottom line' principle, to calculate environmental, economic, social impacts produced by buildings during its life cycle. The present paper aims to present a methodological framework based on an LCSA, used during design stages of buildings and integrated into a building's design technology such as Building Information Modeling (BIM). A conceptual approach to conduct the data integration and a possible workflow to integrate the LCSA into BIM is proposed. The value of the present approach is the possibility to conduct quantitative environmental, economic and social assessment of buildings to guide designers to measure and predict the building's performance. The authors would like to thank the Spanish Ministry of Economy for support the research project (Grant BIA2017-84830-R). The work presented here has a partial financial supporter of the National Research Plan

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is globally recognized as one of the most complete methods for environmental assessment of buildings. Literature assumes that its applications in the building sector are prejudiced regarding complexity and difficulty. However, simplification is necessary, since it can facilitate LCA application in buildings. Moreover, growing interest on reducing environmental impact in the building sector, as well as the relevance of single-family houses on CO 2 emissions have become key points on the wide spread of LCA. Therefore, this paper presents a research study about simplification in LCA recent studies applied to single-family houses. The review focuses on 20 cases that were analyzed according to ISO 14040, ISO 14044, EN 15978, and EN 15804 standards. The main objective was to identify the simplification strategies assumed in each paper, to clarify and to help to promote further developments on LCA. This paper examines system boundary definition, data sources, life cycle phases included, and environmental impact indicator calculated in case studies. Results show the variety of simplifications identified. They affect physical model definition, life cycle scenario definition and communication of results. In most cases, the functional unit was the complete building, the life cycle scenario definition included production, use and demolition phases, and the most considered environmental impact indicator was GWP. Finally, new challenges and recommendations were defined in order to establish common criteria to develop simplification strategies that allow results comparability in LCA of single-family houses.

The use of wood and engineered wood products is today considered an opportunity for the mitigation of negative building environmental impacts, such as greenhouse gas emissions. However, the literature provides evidence that the quantification and generalization of the environmental benefits of wood during the whole building life cycle can be difficult. This paper presents a quantitative method based on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to compare, during their design stages, the environmental impacts produced by a timber-frame single-family house versus those of a concrete-masonry-based house built in Uruguay. The method, conceived as a decision-oriented tool, integrates Building Information Modelling (BIM) and LCA to quantify and compare the environmental impacts of one of the most common dwelling typologies in Uruguay. The results of the cradle-to-grave assessment show that the timber-frame building produced the lowest impacts in Global Warming Potential, Human Toxicity, Acidification Potential, Ozone Depletion Potential, and Freshwater Ecotoxicity, but yielded the highest impacts in Eutrophication Potential. The findings also show that the method developed herein facilitated the comparison and contrast between the pros and cons of both design options during their design stages.

The construction sector is a major producer of greenhouse gas and waste. Several studies reveal the close relationship between the design phase and the reduction of environmental impacts caused during the life cycle of buildings, along with better economic and social performance. In order to achieve increasingly eco-efficient buildings, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is an objective method to assess and reduce the impact buildings exert on the environment. Nevertheless, current environmental challenges require comprehensive solutions for the integration of the three pillars of sustainability, for which Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) is recognised as an appropriate holistic concept. The present paper conducts a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) which aims to detect opportunities to integrate the LCSA into the building design process and in Building Information Modelling (BIM). The results show that the harmonisation of the three dimensions and the data requirements are main achievements. Based on results obtained, a methodological approach to help on the LCSA implementation in BIM is presented. This proposed LCSA-BIM approach is applied to the Spanish architect's workflow and design stages, to exemplify its purpose.