Exploring energy efficient procurement options in building construction

Abstract

There has been a significant increase in interest and research activities in energy efficient building construction in recent years. In the construction phase of building's life cycle, contractors provide resources and select means and methods of construction. To make the construction phase less energy intensive, the contractor has to purchase the required resources from the jobsite proximity to minimize the transportation energy. Sometimes, it might not be possible to analyze and practice energy saving measures for the whole project because of time and budget constraints during this phase. Therefore, it will be helpful to a contractor if he can focus on the most energy consuming activities on the project. This is possible, if the contractor has access to energy data of the project to identify which activity's resources consume the most energy. The contractor may then explore less energy intensive alternatives, and procurement methods that are available for those resources. This research focuses on applying IT to tackle the issue by developing a spreadsheet-based tool to estimate energy consumption in material and equipment procurement for construction activities of a project. The proposed method uses the project's bill of quantity, and data related to materials transportation and equipment operation to estimate the probable energy consumption during construction. A case study was performed to demonstrate the application of the tool and discuss possible alternatives to save energy consumption. The proposed method allows contractors to identify energy intensive activities during construction and deploy energy efficient procurement to reduce energy consumption of a particular project. © 2014 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.