Getting Environmental Information from Construction Cost Databases: Applications in Brazilian Courses and Environmental Assessment

Abstract

The traditional decision-making process in construction is still driven by factors such as cost and time, not adequately addressing indicators to control their environmental impacts. So, how to improve environmental communication to incorporate sustainable building practices. The incorporation of environmental indicators may enlarge the scope of construction management tools. In the case of cost databases, widely used in the construction sector, this action can contribute to the communication and dissemination of environmental practices. This paper mapped 24 indicators from construction cost databases to assess their ability to communicate and disseminate environmental information. The research comprised: (a) a review of the use of cost bases in the environmental study, (b) identification of the most cited bases in 27 Brazilian civil engineering courses, and (c) analysis of the selected databases through of the assessment matrix, it crosses cost data versus environmental information. CYPE, TCPO, and ORSE presented performance medium, and higher results than SINAPI, BDCCM, and BCCA. The tools presented low control over environmental information, such as water and energy consumption, machine circulation and pollution generation. However, it has been observed that when adding environmental indicators, these tools can contribute significantly to disseminate good practices in its wide user base.

Environmental cost control system of manufacturing enterprises using artificial intelligence based on value chain of circular economy

“…The target is relatively limited and short term. Some enterprises focus on ecological benefits and consider the long-term development of enterprises and society (Ceptureanu et al 2018;Borja et al 2019). Taking the production process as a guide, prevent environmental costs in advance.…”

“…The business environmental protection cost measurement is based on transparent environmental costs, various cost projects' characteristics, and the selection of good measurement attributes and paths to quantify environmental cost results. Since the traditional environmental cost control model follows the 'pollution-first-pollution-oriented' approach, there are no effective defensive measures to control the environment destruction and the neglect of pollution sources, such as product production, consumption, and the entire process of generating environmental costs (Arthur et al, 2018). Undoubtedly, this will inevitably cause severe environmental pollution and adverse effects on downstream waste disposal and recycling.…”

Rapid Environmental Assessment of Buildings: Linking Environmental and Cost Estimating Databases

“…It is common to use quantitative and qualitative information from cost estimates for LCA analysis, and is reported as an important source of information, for example, by K. Simonen et al [30]. Borja et al [31] presented a review of the literature on the use of cost-estimating databases for environmental assessment. He concludes that these databases are mostly used to complete missing information, but their potential for use in environmental assessment is much greater, and it would be advisable to make this use of cost-estimating databases more systematic, for example, by implementing environmental parameters directly into the databases.…”

“…There is probably no correlation between the cost of a building and its environmental impacts, but the detailed qualitative and quantitative information about a building that construction cost estimates provide is very useful for assessing the environmental impacts of a building. Nevertheless, this potential of building cost estimates is not often exploited [31]. However, when it is, the resulting solutions, although of high quality, are always country-specific due to the local limitations of cost-estimating databases, which is the case in the research of Freire-Guerrero et al [32].…”

Exploring Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Internet of Things (IoT) Integration for Sustainable Building

“…Additionally, Khalesi et al [69] proposed to integrate the Stepwise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis method with BIM technology to identify and reduce time delays caused by rework in construction projects from a time perspective to enhance the delivery of sustainable construction projects. Furthermore, Borja et al [70] used a cost database in the construction sector facilitated with environmental information to generate environmental indicators to aid decision making. The emergence of BIM has turned the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry into an information management industry, managing buildings through information [71,72].…”