Building Life Cycle Assessment calculation

The LCA data in BIM & More is provided in an aggregated format to optimise the amount of information in the model. For example, the LCA data for materials is aggregated to the values that are relevant for the most important use cases of whole building LCA - according to the German DGNB and QNG standards.

Each of these standards has a different set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that are relevant to the evaluation of a building. Depending on the evaluation framework selected in the project settings, BIM & More evaluates the relevant KPIs for that system at the click of a mouse.

One of these three evaluation frameworks can be selected for each project in BIM & More:

1. DGNB 2023
2. QNG Plus
3. QNG Premium

Depending on the framework used, different categories are displayed under the project rating. Different calculation methods may result in different values.

The Product LCA or Product EPD data provided as standard in BIM & More contains information that generally refers to records from publicly available EPD databases. Examples include Eco-Platform, Ökobaudat and other published EPD databases.

A major challenge in evaluating the datasets contained in BIM & More is that publicly available information on the circular economy and environmental impacts is largely incomplete and insufficient. To overcome this problem, it is necessary to make approximations based on the available information, including the regional context. This scientific work is being carried out for BIM & More by EPEA GmbH in Hamburg.