Sustainable Construction Approach through Integration of LCA and BIM Tools

The construction industry is turning more and more towards sustainability. To achieve sustainability, a balance between environmental, economic and social aspects has to be reached. Therefore, these criteria have to be taken into account during the building design phases. LCA is a suitable tool for assessing a building's environmental performance. Nevertheless, it has some issues that need to be resolved for its integration in the design process and use as an assessing design tool. By integrating LCA with other tools, such as BIM, a more holistic approach to sustainable construction could be achieved. Thus, tools which are already existing can create synergies for attaining higher efficiency and sustainable construction. Furthermore, these tools should be implemented from the early project phases onwards, since the capacity to influence the project is greater in these phases. Finally, two different approaches for integrating LCA and BIM are presented in order to highlight future research fields.