CO2 emission calculation method during construction process for developing BIM-based performance evaluation system

Abstract

Nowadays, global warming is a big challenge for human beings; since the Kyoto Protocol became effective, greenhouse gas emissions have been an important environmental evaluation index in all industries. Construction is a big contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. The greenhouse gas emissions in the construction stage are mainly from the construction materials and the construction activities. The purpose of this paper is to quantitatively calculate the carbon dioxide emissions in the construction process, and provide a method of controlling the CO2 emissions effectively by converting into cost. In this study, the authors selected the tunnel construction as the research object, and chose the primary greenhouse gas-CO2 to estimate emissions. The authors did a research based on BIM (Building Information Modeling) technology, to calculate CO2 emission during the construction process. It considered the CO2 emissions from main materials and equipment. Finally, the authors used the recent carbon emission trading price to convert the CO2 emission into cost, and did the economic analysis. The method proposed in this paper can effectively evaluate the CO2 emissions in the construction process; it has a good reference significance for the selection of low-carbon emission materials in the design process, and it provides a case reference and direction for research of low-carbon equipment. By using the EU emissions trading system, the economic conversion of CO2 emissions will provide an economic evaluation index for the CO2 emissions of tunnel construction activities. Meanwhile, based on the method of this study, a BIM-based automated performance evaluation system could be developed.