BIM-integrated embodied carbon assessment of prefabricated buildings in Hong Kong

Abstract

There is an increasing awareness of the significance of embodied carbon in the life cycle carbon of buildings. However, the roughness of data acquisition hinders the application of life cycle assessment (LCA) method for calculating embodied carbon. Building Information Modelling (BIM) has a great potential to reduce the calculation time by acquiring data early and to improve the accuracy of results by reducing manual process. However, manually processing time has not been significantly reduced given the limited interoperability of BIM and LCA. Therefore, this paper aims to establish a framework to assess the embodied carbon of prefabricated buildings within the BIM environment. A typical residential flat in Hong Kong was selected to check the applicability of the framework. The proposed framework improves the efficiency of prefabricated buildings' embodied carbon assessment and is fundamental for the integration of other smart-tech with life cycle carbon research.