BIMpeco - Environmentally relevant product data in collaborative BIM environments

Motivation and research question

Building products can pose a potential risk to the environment and health due to their pollutant content or the release of pollutants. This applies to the manufacture of the building products and the construction of the building as well as to the operation of the building - and the disposal phase  at the end of the product or building life cycle. This qualitative product information is not shown in  life cycle assessments and has not yet been systematically included in the BIM environment.  However, the information and documentation of the products used in the building is important for stakeholders in the entire value chain.

The BIMpeco project set itself the goal of developing the basics for the digital information management of qualitative, environmentally relevant product data for the first time. Product information management should take into account the entire life cycle and the entire supply chain,  in particular with regard to ecological product management, construction accounting, maintenance  of materials and subsequent recycling.

Initial situation/status quo

In Austria, harmonized standards for the avoidance of pollutants and impurities in building products  were established, which formed the basis for the present project. Successful examples of the  procurement of low-pollutant and low-emission building products are "ÖkoKauf Wien" (working  group building construction and interior design), the service package "Sustainable building in the  municipality" and the "Sustainable procurement (naBe)" of the federal government, which for  lowpollutant and low-emission products prescribe the so-called ÖkoBau criteria. These are managed digitally on the online platform https://www.baubook.info/oea/ and can be read into software for tendering, awarding and billing via an existing interface. Criteria catalogs for building services components and lighting were published by ÖkoKauf Wien working group "Haustechnik". A digital processing of this information has not yet been carried out.

Normative standards for product information management and product data templates over the building life cycle such as ISO 19650-1 Organization and digitization of information about  buildings and civil engineering works, including building information modelling (BIM) —  Information management using building information modelling — Part 1: Concepts and principles and ISO 23387 Building information modelling (BIM) — Data templates for construction objects used in the life cycle of built assets — Concepts and principles have so far only been applied sporadically in proprietary systems.

Project contents and objectives

BIMpeco pursued the overarching goal of supporting the construction of resource- and energyefficient buildings with the highest possible quality of life through the use of low-pollutant and lowemission products. For this purpose, workflows and data structures for the digital  information management of environmentally relevant product data should be defined. Product information management should comply with the following principles based on ISO 19650-1:

• management and documentation in the Common Data Environment (CDE, collaborative BIM environment for all information, including non-graphic ones),
• based on current standards and methods
• consideration of the entire life cycle of the structure,
• passing on the information along the supply chain,
• ongoing specification of information requirements,
• quality assurance of the information.

Methodical procedure

The integration of construction product data in the Common Data Environment (CDE) was examined through an intensive analysis of ISO 23387. As a result, conceptual considerations were made about data templates and data sheets, their integration into existing processes and data structures was analyzed and recommendations for a BIM-supported target process were developed. Practical experience was decisively incorporated into the project results, both from the specialist areas of the project consortium (ecological building product management; tendering, awarding and billing) as well as from production companies and users of building product data.

Environmentally relevant product properties of building products and building services components were summarized in a new attribute model and transferred to around 40 data templates for exemplary product groups. The project results were tested using exemplary product data sheets  and disseminated in the specialist community.

Results and Conclusions

Data templates or data sheets are a very suitable means for product information management that accompanies the life cycle, particularly of qualitative, environmentally relevant properties of  building products and building services components. The major advantages lie on the one hand in  the modularity with which several data sheets can be used to describe a single object from various aspects, on the other hand in making the data available in the Common Data Environment  without having to access the BIM building model directly.

This potential makes the project results interesting for a wide variety of target groups, from product manufacturers to planners and experts, e.g. for ecological building product management, to the users of buildings. The following project results are made available to the public open-source:

• Attribute model for environmentally relevant product information on construction products and building services components (compliant with ISO 23387)
• Data templates for approx. 40 exemplary product groups
• Guide "CDE Interface for BIMpeco"
• Guideline for the Product Information System in the Common Data Environment

Outlook

Direct further work with the project results still requires a number of development steps, implementation as part of a practical construction project is not yet possible. With the  findings from the BIMpeco project, however, it became clear that the technology of data templates and data sheets will have a major influence on the data procurement of construction product data in the medium term.

Project management

IBO - Österreichisches Institut für Baubiologie und -ökologie

Project or cooperation partners

• ib-data GmbH
• Güssing Energy Technologies GmbH
• AEE Institut für Nachhaltige Technologien
• A-NULL Development GmbH

IBO - Österreichisches Institut für Baubiologie und -ökologie
Mag. Veronika Huemer-Kals
Alserbachstraße 5/8
A-1090 Wien
Tel.: +43 (1) 319 20 05
E-mail: veronika.huemer-kals@ibo.at
Web: www.ibo.at