To foster sustainable development, the environmental impacts of the construction sector need to be reduced substantially. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is the established methodology for the quantification of environmental impacts, and therefore has been increasingly applied to assess the environmental performance of buildings. By coupling LCAs with digital design tools, e.g., building information modeling (BIM), the identification of environmental hotspots and their mitigation is possible during the design process. The objective of the study is to identify the current integration approaches, and determine the pros and cons of the integration process from different viewpoints, namely, technical, informational, organizational and functional issues. Therefore, a comprehensive systematic literature review (SLR) was performed. We identified 60 relevant BIM-LCA case studies and analyzed the applied BIM-LCA workflows in detail. A total of 16 of the reviewed studies applied LCA during the early design stage. These studies used a manual or semiautomatic data exchange between the BIM models and LCA tools. In most cases, contemporary BIM-LCA workflows utilized conventional spreadsheets (e.g., Excel sheets in 16 cases). However, the analysis shows that an automated link between LCA and BIM can be achieved when overcoming the technical, organizational and informational issues discussed in the paper. This could enable the streamlining of LCA applications in design practice, and thus support the necessary improvements in the environmental performance of buildings.

The quality of the indoor environment is becoming increasingly important because people are spending the majority of their time indoors. This has led to an increased interest in the field of health and well-being of users of buildings and to the development of various assessment schemes dealing with this issue. In this study, LEED O+M Building Operations and Maintenance (hereinafter LEED O+M), BREEAM In-Use and DGNB Buildings In-Use were compared with a specialized BCS WELL that is focused on the health and well-being of building occupants. The aim of the comparison was to evaluate to what extent the selected building certification schemes (BCSs) cover the aspects of health and well-being in buildings. Based on the analysis, it was found that the observed BCSs mostly pay attention to indoor air quality, light and thermal comfort. In other areas, only certain topics are covered or the topics have a different focus. Another important finding of the study was that certain aspects that are important for the health and well-being of the occupants are not dependent only on the building design but also on the management of the building and the services provided within the building. This kind of information is especially valuable for building developers, managers and owners so they know how to improve health and well-being in a building. The present study provides them with a comprehensive overview of the certification schemes that are widely used in current practice.

Purpose: An estimation of the environmental impact of buildings by means of a life cycle assessment (LCA) raises uncertainty related to the parameters that are subject to major changes over longer time spans. The main aim of the present study is to evaluate the influence of modifications in the electricity mix and the production efficiency in the chosen reference year on the embodied impacts (i.e., greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions) of building materials and components and the possible impact of this on future refurbishment measures. Methods: A new LCA methodological approach was developed and implemented that can have a significant impact on the way in which existing buildings are assessed at the end of their service lives. The electricity mixes of different reference years were collected and assessed, and the main datasets and sub-datasets were modified according to the predefined substitution criteria. The influence of the electricity-mix modification and production efficiency were illustrated on a selected existing reference building, built in 1970. The relative contribution of the electricity mix to the embodied impact of the production phase was calculated for four different electricity mixes, with this comprising the electricity mix from 1970, the current electricity mix and two possible future electricity-mix scenarios for 2050. The residual value of the building was also estimated. Results and discussion: In the case presented, the relative share of the electricity mix GHG emission towards the total value was as high as 20% for separate building components. If this electricity mix is replaced with an electricity mix having greater environmental emissions, the relative contribution of the electricity mix to the total emissions can be even higher. When, by contrast, the modified electricity mix is almost decarbonized, the relative contribution to the total emissions may well be reduced to a point where it becomes negligible. The modification of the electricity mix can also influence the residual value of a building. In the observed case, the differences due to different electricity mixes were in the range of 10%. Conclusions: It was found that those parameters that are subject to a major change during the reference service period of the building should be treated dynamically in order to obtain reliable results. Future research is foreseen to provide additional knowledge concerning the influence of dynamic parameters on both the use phase and the end-of-life phase of buildings, and these findings will also be important when planning future refurbishment measures.

The Life Cycle Assessment of a building is a complex analysis that also involves the use of the predicted Reference Service Life (RSL) of the building components and materials, as well as the predicted RSL of the whole building. The RSL values of individual materials and building components can be obtained from different sources and are not exactly comparable. In the present study, the influence of selected RLS values on an LCA assessment was evaluated. Three different RSL databases were used as the sources of the data to estimate the environmental impacts of selected building components (internal wooden door and external finishing coat). Two scenarios were presented. In the first scenario a building component can be reused in another building, while in the second scenario the reuse of the building component is not possible. The study showed that dependent on the selected RSL database, the results can differ by up to a factor of five. Therefore, it is very important to describe clearly the maintenance scenarios for a building in order to have a reliable comparison of the results of LCA assessments.

To foster sustainable development in construction sectors, environmental impacts need to be reduced dramatically. The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) technique is the most firmly established methodology used to quantify these environmental impacts and, therefore, has been applied with increasing frequency to assess the environmental performance of buildings. To effectively improve a building’s environmental performance, an integration of LCA in the design process is required. This can be achieved by coupling LCA with digital design tools, e.g., Building Information Modelling (BIM). To identify the pro and cons of streamlining the integration of LCA and BIM, a comprehensive Systematic Literature Review (SLR) was performed. We identified more than 50 relevant BIM-LCA case studies and analyzed the applied BIM-LCA workflows in detail. In most of the studies reviewed, the LCA has been applied in an early design stage. The authors primarily used LCA tools and manual or semi-automatic methods to exchange data between BIM models. In most cases, contemporary BIM-LCA workflows utilized conventional spreadsheets (e.g., Excel worksheets). However, the results of the analysis show that an automated link between LCA and BIM can be achieved if certain challenges are overcome. By automating exchange of information between BIM and LCA tools and improving the reliability of this process, the LCA application can be streamlined in design practice and, hence, the necessary improvements of the environmental performance of buildings can be supported.

The construction industry is responsible for a significant amount of greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, buildings have the potential to play a central role in climate change mitigation. It is also known that building projects are unique and complex, which is why a high degree of process automation is necessary. Two key methods can be employed to calculate the environmental impacts of a construction process: Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Currently, both methods are being considered as a part of advanced building projects. Database (BIM) models can be used as a precise inventory of materials and as an input for LCA. This study aims to (1) review the current status of published BIM-LCA workflows, (2) use a common case study among participants from various countries to compare the individual workflows and the calculated results, (3) identify potential sources of errors in all workflows on the common case study, and (4) provide recommendations and suggestions for developing BIM-LCA models based on the example of the common case study. The outcomes show that the main sources of differences emerge from not including all materials or from the inconsistencies in the exported material lists of the bill of quantities. The reasons for the missing materials stem primarily from the inadequate decomposition of composite materials, oversight of certain materials, and exclusion of thin materials such as foils. Inconsistencies arise from the incorrect handling of composite materials, the grouping of similar materials, and rounding inaccuracies. These issues highlight that errors occur early in the life cycle inventory phase, which forms the foundation of subsequent LCA phases, thereby impacting the final results and potentially leading to inaccurate assessments of environmental impacts. Ensuring accuracy at this stage is therefore critical for supporting reliable sustainability assessments. Consequently, recommendations are proposed to mitigate errors across various stages of the process to enhance the accuracy of LCA outcomes.