Efficiency of BIM-based LCA

This thesis concerns how Sweden relates to life cycle assessment (LCA) in the construction process. LCA means analyzing a products impact and the analysis includes the whole life span of the product. A building has a high complexity and the combination with its unique shape will make the LCA more comprehensive, unlike e.g. aluminum cans. Recently there has been a development of a working procedure in the construction industry. This method is called BIM which means building information modelling and the key thing is to gather all the information of the building in the same model. The benefits by using BIM are that a lot of double work is minimized and different involved stakeholders can take part of the model and work in the same model. The purpose with the thesis is to contribute to a more sustainable design through increased use of LCA. The aim has been to study the opportunities of integration between LCA and BIM, and also study the opportunities of making the procedure more efficient. Firstly a study has been done concerning whether how LCA is performed in Sweden and what problems there are concerning the making of a LCA in the construction sector. Next step was to find the benefits with BIM that reduce the problems. The thesis questions have been answered with mainly a literature study and a few interviews. The last question, considered as the main question, has also been answered with a case study. The case study includes an attempt of making an LCA on a part of the building of Jönköping University, School of Engineering by using BIM. The result shows that there is barely anyone that is performing LCA on buildings in Sweden today. LCA is performed when there is a demand from clients, but it is rarely. The knowledge of LCA is therefore poor and there are no standard methods. The results from the analysis of buildings today are not reliable. BIM facilitates the performance of LCA in several ways, but the problems with unreliable results remains. Linking the analysis to BIM makes an awareness of sustainability in an early stage, which can be considered more important than getting a correct result. BIM gives us the opportunity to save time in a time consuming procedure and hopefully contributing to a reliable result. This could be seen as a step in the right direction towards a sustainable development.