Session
TU.3.A || Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Life Cycle Assessment
Authors
Anderson, Jane; Rønning, Anne
Abstract
EPD provide standardised environmental information about the impact of making, using and disposing of products. Over 40,000 EPD for construction products are now available, and many provide the “cradle to gate” data digitally for use in Building LCA tools. Recognising the need to significantly reduce the embodied impact of our buildings, ISO/TC59/SC17/WG3 (WG3) is developing ISO 22057 to standardise the provision of digitised EPD and ensure they can be used to their full potential – for example by identifying suitable products and allowing different gate to grave building scenarios to be evaluated. WG3 is developing the standard using ISO procedures including enquiry with National Standards Bodies and liaisons with the ISO committees for Building Information Modelling and building level environmental assessment. Using the Vienna Agreement, CEN/TC350 is also participating in the work. ISO 22057 will ensure digitised gate to grave EPD results are accompanied by machine readable data describing each scenario. For module A4 (gate to site), where a manufacturer has invested in logistics, e.g. by optimising delivery routes and loads, then the provision of machine-readable data will ensure that this information can be used to realistically model delivery impacts using manufacturer data. Scenarios can also be broken down into sub-scenarios, for example for module A4 for a timber product showing the combined impact of 500 km transport by road and 3000 km by container ship, this can be separated into two sub-scenarios, one showing the impact of the road transport and the other the impact of shipping, allowing the data in A4 to be adjusted and scaled for a different building location. By standardising this process using ISO 22057, it will ensure that all building LCA tools and tool developers have access to common digital information in the most appropriate format to use alongside BIM. We will present the standard and show how it could improve building life cycle assessment.