A BIM-Based construction and demolition waste information management system for greenhouse gas quantification and reduction

Abstract Excessive greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have caused serious global warming and climate change. As the construction and demolition waste (CDW) end of life disposal process is a source of GHG emissions, it is vital to precisely estimate and reduce CDW end of life GHG emissions. The precise estimation of CDW information is essential for GHG estimation and reduction. However, as current CDW information and associated GHG estimation methods tend to be inaccurate, in this paper, a building information modeling (BIM)-based CDW information management system (IMS) is constructed that provides precise CDW information and a detailed information estimation process. To facilitate the accurate quantification of CDW disposal GHG emissions, mathematical formulae that include several GHG emission factors are proposed. A practical case study from China is then given to demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed methodology in quantifying and reducing CDW disposal GHG emissions. Accurate GHG emission estimation are determined for fifteen CDW disposal types and a comparison are conducted. Concrete was found to have the highest carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide emissions during transportation and the highest carbon dioxide emissions during handling, and organics were found to have the highest decomposition methane emissions. Targeted suggestions are given for source-separated CDW disposal GHG emission reduction based on the different emission characteristics. The combination of the BIM-based CDW IMS and the developed mathematical formulae were found to efficiently and accurately determine the CDW information and the associated GHG emissions, and therefore provide a practical guide to reducing the serious environmental damage generated by CDW disposal.