Role of Building Information Modeling in Green Architecture

The sizable environmental footprint of buildings is now well understood and widely documented. Globally, buildings account for 32 percent of total final energy use, 30 percent of energy-related CO₂, and a third of fluorinated gases (Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change, Fifth Assessment, 2014). Buildings are also projected to become the fastest growing sector for energy use (U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2013) and therefore the largest emitter of energy-related greenhouse gas. In the United States buildings don’t fare much better, where they consume close to 40 percent of total energy, 68 percent of electricity, 12 percent of total water (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, n.d.b and 60 percent of raw materials during their construction (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, n.d.c), while creating almost 40 percent of the nation’s total carbon dioxide emissions and 26 percent of non-industrial waste (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2009). It’s clear that improving building performance is imperative to reducing the dramatic human impact on the environment.