Assessing Embodied Energy and Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Infrastructure Projects

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from construction processes are a serious concern globally. Of the several approaches taken to assess emissions, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) based methods do not just take into account the construction phase, but consider all phases of the life cycle of the construction. However, many current LCA approaches make general assumptions regarding location and effects, which do not do justice to the inherent dynamics of normal construction projects. This study presents a model to assess the embodied energy and associated GHG emissions, which is specifically adapted to address the dynamics of infrastructure construction projects. The use of the model is demonstrated on the superstructure of a prefabricated bridge. The findings indicate that Building Information Models/Modeling (BIM) and Discrete Event Simulation (DES) can be used to efficiently generate project-specific data, which is needed for estimating the embodied energy and associated GHG emissions in construction settings. This study has implications for the advancement of LCA-based methods (as well as project management) as a way of assessing embodied energy and associated GHG emissions related to construction.