Sustainability assessment through green BIM for environmental, social and economic efficiency

BIM is representing a shift in the traditional process of building delivery. Its adoption in US reached 71% in 2012 rising from
17% in 2007; moreover, Europe is going to adopt BIM for public contracting as promoted by the European Union Public
Procurement Directive. Meanwhile, BIM is widely diffused in UK and Northern Europe, as it includes a more accurate
documentation, less rework and shorter project timelines. The use of BIM to provide data for energy performance evaluation and
sustainability assessment is defined Green BIM and pioneering design organizations are adopting this approach to enable
integrated design, construction and maintenance towards Net Zero Energy buildings. Green BIM includes Building Energy
Modelling dealing with project energy performance to identify options optimising building energy efficiency during the life
cycle. By allowing revisions during the design phase, project teams can ensure that customers’ green ambitions beyond
regulation compliance can be realized, together with technical and economic requirements. Thus, BIM can provide information to
support the calculation of a number of credit points to define goal levels of sustainability related to rating systems. The aim of the
paper is to investigate the opportunity to include the “green dimension” in BIM considering the more diffused rating systems.