Utilizing BIM and Carbon Estimating Methods for Meaningful Data Representation

The building sector releases 36% of global CO2 emissions, with 66% of emissions occurring during the operation stage of the life cycle of a building. While current research focuses on using Building Information Modelling (BIM) for energy management of a building, there is little research on the visualizing building carbon emission data in BIM to support decision makings during operation phase. This paper proposes an approach for gathering, analyzing and visualizing building carbon emissions data by integrating BIM and carbon estimation models, to assist the building operation management teams in discovering carbon emissions problems and reducing total carbon emission. Data requirements, carbon emission estimation algorithms, integration mechanism with BIM are investigated in this paper. A case is used to demonstrate the proposed approach. The approach described in this paper provides the inhabitants important graphical representation of data to determine a buildings sustainability performance, and can allow policy makers and building managers to make informed decisions and respond quickly to emergency situations. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.