Building information modeling-based model for calculating direct and indirect emissions in construction projects

The construction industry is considered as one of the most dynamic sectors that have upstream and downstream economic links and has been growing rapidly in the last few decades. On the other hand, it is considered as one of the main sources of greenhouse gases where construction projects represent a huge portion of sources producing carbon dioxide gases (CO2). Furthermore, greenhouse gases (GHG) are one of construction emissions that should be investigated to calculate the overall emissions. Therefore, estimating construction emissions is very important in order to keep emissions at an acceptable level. This paper presents a building information modeling (BIM)-based model that enables the estimation of six types of emissions including: greenhouse gases, sulfur dioxide, particular matter, eutrophication particles, ozone depleting particles and smog. As such, the total direct and indirect emissions can be calculated where these emissions are produced from construction activities during the overall project life cycle phases which are: manufacturing phase, transportation phase, construction phase, operation phase, maintenance phase, and deconstruction/demolition phase. The methods of calculating direct and indirect emissions are extensively described in the paper. A case study is presented to illustrate the use of the proposed BIM-based model.