A BIM based tool for assessing embodied energy for buildings

Assessment of the energy associated with the material production, transportation and construction of buildings provides an opportunity for reducing the use of energy and improving sustainability. Building Information Modeling (BIM) provides a platform to incorporate sustainability information in the design of buildings. However, interoperability of BIM with Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tools needs further investigation. Previous research in this area has either partially employed BIM; data was exported from the main BIM authoring tool and then auxiliary tools were utilized to evaluate the model, thereby causing a disconnect between the model and analysis resulting in non-interoperable systems, or has ignored the importance of retaining the LCA results within the BIM environment. To address this issue, this paper presents a framework to estimate the embodied energy content within the native BIM environment. The implementation of this framework is illustrated by the development of a tool for estimation of material embodied energy, transportation energy and construction energy. A prototype of the tool has been implemented on a case project to establish the workability of the framework.