Research on the computational model for carbon emissions in building construction stage based on BIM

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to marshal the carbon sources, and explore a computational model to calculate the buildings’ carbon emissions by using building information modeling (BIM) techniques. The study aims to integrate the BIM techniques with the carbon emission and energy analysis tools, which can provide a more exact quantification result.Design/methodology/approach – To define the scope of this study, several standards or regulations have been comparatively analyzed. The BIM technique has also been used to establish the computational model of carbon emissions, including the calculation principle, the basic database, and each process of modeling. Finally, a case study is given to test the theoretical study.Findings – The paper provides a quantitative calculation method for the carbon emissions of buildings, and suggests an approach to integrate the BIM techniques with the low carbon research. This allows the quantity of material consumption and carbon emission to be calculated in real time...