Book Description

For over a decade BRE has played a key role in assessing the environmental impact of construction. During this time interest in life cycle assessment (LCA), often known as ‘embodied impacts’, has increased markedly among building designers, who recognise that impacts from buildings extend well beyond the operational energy uses of heating, cooling and power. There is an increasing understanding that we live in a finite world requiring better resource efficiency. This has become evident through an explosion of events, media coverage, new consultancy services and numerous new tools. At the same time, the construction industry has begun gearing up for building information modelling (BIM), where 3D drawn information and meta-data (such as construction product information) are integrated into a single model. The combination of these two significant changes has paved the way for BRE and three other partners to produce IMPACT: a method designed for building-level LCA and life cycle costing.This Information Paper focuses on the environmental aspects of IMPACT. It begins by introducing the IMPACT project and LCA from the perspective of a building designer. This is followed by a review of the key themes and advantages of building-level LCA including BIM, building-level comparison and integration into the BRE Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM; www.breeam.org). After reading this Information Paper, readers will gain crucial understanding of how BRE is approaching BIM life cycle assessment, and how it is implemented through IMPACT.

IMPACT
Life cycle assessment: measuring environmental impact-Issues and indicators
Life cycle stages (What are embodied impacts?)
Environmental product declarations and datasets
Are life cycle impacts important?
Life cycle impacts and building design
Measuring life cycle impacts
Product level-Element level
Building level (The benefits)
BIM, integration and automation
BIM and life cycle assessment
OpenBIM and IFCs
The IMPACT method
Building-level comparison and assessment
Incorporation into BREEAM (Element-level life cycle assessment in BREEAM. Building-level data gathering and IMPACT in BREEAM. Building-level performance assessment in BREEAM)
Conclusion
References

12pp A4
10 line drawings