Journal of Building Engineering 21 (2019) 173–185

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Journal of Building Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jobe

Estimation of environmental emissions and impacts of building construction T

– A decision making tool for contractors
⁎
Malindu Sandanayakea, , Guomin Zhangb, Sujeeva Setungeb
a
School of Engineering and Science, Victoria University, Melbourne, VIC 3011, Australia
b
School of Engineering, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC 3001, Australia

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Building construction sites are responsible for significant energy consumption and emission production. The
Environmental emissions emissions at building construction stage vary from greenhouse gases (GHG) such as carbon dioxides (CO2) to
Impacts non-GHG emissions such as carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx), particulate matter (PM) and sulphur
Sustainable construction dioxides (SO2). The construction emissions are often neglected due to the low amounts of emissions compared to
Buildings
high use phase emissions over the building life cycle. However studies have shown that these impacts from
building construction can be significant at national and local level. Several difficulties and complications in
estimation have restrained the possibility of effective decision making to minimise these emissions. Stakeholders
in the construction industry seek the necessity of an emission calculation tool that enables the decision making in
construction related emissions with minimum effort. The Construction Emission Evaluation Tool (CEET) pre-
sented in the study allows designers and contractors to estimate and compare emissions from the major emission
sources in building construction. Emission analyses at project, equipment and activity levels provide in-depth
scrutiny of emissions in minimising emissions and assisting the decision making for effective resource planning.
Foundation construction corresponding to a case study is presented to demonstrate the functions and the cap-
abilities of the developed calculation tool. The tool can provide a strong basis for the construction industry
stakeholders and related researchers to make better decisions in maintaining a sustainable work environment.
The study is also the initial step towards developing a sustainable decision making tool that can optimise cost,
emissions and other construction related issues.

1. Introduction
Buildings are responsible for a large amount of energy consump-
tions and environmental emissions throughout its life cycle [1]. How-
ever, majority of the research focus has been on material selection and
energy optimisation at use phase to minimise emissions from buildings
[2–7]. It is also noted that most of the energy rating tools have given
importance towards selection of greener materials and utilisation of
energy efficiency methods to enhance the building occupancy condi-
tions with less emphasis on construction stage emissions and impacts
[8–10]. However, several other studies have highlighted the sig-
nificance of impacts in other life cycle stages such as construction and
end of life stages at distinct levels to assist the decision making process
[11–17]. Moreover, analysing and comparing environmental impacts of
all life cycle stages is critical in optimising energy use and emissions of
a building life cycle [18].
The importance of estimation and optimisation of short-term
environmental impacts of construction stage have been the main focus
on previous emission studies conducted at the building construction
stage [14,19]. However the impacts at the construction stage are either
neglected or approximated in majority of the other studies due to the
complexity in analysis or insignificant contribution of emissions on
overall life cycle impacts. Moreover the uniqueness of the construction
method often indicate varying contributions of emissions which could
be another reason for research studies to ignore the emissions at the
construction stage. Even though the optimisation of emissions at the
construction stage incur a smaller portion of impacts in the overall life
cycle, it is worthwhile to examine its short term significance.
Contractors and designers in the Architectural, Engineering and
Construction (AEC) industries also seek the necessity of minimising the
environmental emissions at the construction stage of a building [19].
For instance, effective material selection can be important for designers
while effective resource allocation could be important for contractors to
minimise emissions at the construction stage. However, there is a lack

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: malindu.sandanayake@vu.edu.au (M. Sandanayake).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jobe.2018.10.023
Received 5 March 2018; Received in revised form 21 September 2018; Accepted 26 October 2018
Available online 29 October 2018
2352-7102/ Crown Copyright © 2018 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
M. Sandanayake et al.
of comprehensive decision making tool which enables designers and
contractors to estimate, compare and optimise emissions at the con-
struction stage. Thus the objective of this research is to develop a de-
cision-making tool which comprehensively evaluates emissions at the
construction stage of a building. The initial focus of the study is to
identify the critical areas of focus for emission reduction at the con-
struction stage. The identified areas will then be effectively used for
development of a framework and decision support tool which would
enable users to perform a comprehensive analysis on minimising
emissions at the construction stage of a building.
2. Background
2.1. Previous emission studies at the construction stage of a building
Emissions at the construction stage is found to be unique due to the
variety of techniques adopted during different construction stages of a
building [12,14]. Therefore, majority of the building emission studies
have either neglected or avoided conducting a comprehensive emission
analysis at building construction [20,21]. In one case study emission
variations in pre-fabrication construction were compared to conven-
tional construction [20]. In other similar studies, emissions in different
buildings types were compared [1,22]. The types of buildings in these
studies were either concrete or steel based on the materials used and
office or commercial based on the type of utilisation. The focus of these
studies has been only to compare the total emissions at the construction
stage, while giving minimum attention to a comprehensive emission
assessment.
A handful of studies have made attempts to conduct in-depth
emission analyses at the construction stage of a building [15,19,23].
One case study based research, proposed models and methodologies to
conduct in-depth direct emissions analyses at building construction
[19]. Another study extensively investigated emissions from excavation
in residential construction sites [23]. Different cases of varying site
slopes were chosen to investigate variation of emissions in excavation
sites. A similar study conducted an in-depth emission analysis at the
foundation construction stage using two different case studies [14]. The
study compared emissions from pile and raft foundation construction
techniques and estimated emissions from materials, equipment and
transportation using detailed calculations. Complicated manual calcu-
lations using models, frameworks were involved in these studies to
achieve comprehensive emission assessment at building construction.
These studies emphasize the importance of an integrated tool that can
comprehensively estimate and compare emissions at the construction
stage of a building. On the other hand most of the construction man-
agement studies have focused on optimising the cost and time in
building construction [24–27]. The main reason is most of the con-
struction stakeholders are concerned about the overall profits and rate
of returns from the projects. However, with the current significance to
sustainable construction and as passionate organisations the construc-
tion industry seeks more opportunities to maintain greener construction
sites with minimum environmental impacts.
2.2. Existing emission calculation tools
Several studies have made attempts to develop tools to assess
emissions from various products and processes. Brown et al. developed
a calculation tool for estimating GHG emissions for bio solids proces-
sing [18]. The tool was developed for Canadian council of ministers of
the environment to assess GHG emissions from bio solids. Bio solid
management was categorised into solids processing and stabilization,
and end use and disposal for GHG emission calculations. These emis-
sions were represented as a function of material used. Another study
developed a farm-focused calculator for calculating emissions from crop
and livestock production [19]. This developed “Cool Farm Tool” has
integrated several empirical models to calculate GHG emissions.
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Journal of Building Engineering 21 (2019) 173–185
In construction industry, only a handful of studies have made at-
tempts to develop emission tools for assessment of emissions during
construction. Sihabuddin and Ariaratnam developed an emission cal-
culator tool for calculating emissions in underground utility operations
[20]. It is developed in Microsoft Excel using Visual Basic coding. The
tool can calculate emissions from equipment and transport vehicles
separately. In another study, Guggemos and Horvath developed deci-
sion-support tool for estimating environmental emissions from com-
mercial building construction [21]. The toolkit has the capacity to
compare emissions by varying the equipment age and size. However,
the toolkit lacks the capacity to evaluate emissions from a specific
construction activity. The review on existing emission calculation tools
concludes that a comprehensive yet a simple toolkit is still in demand
for the contractors and designers to estimate and compare emissions at
construction stage.
2.3. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tools and software to estimate
environmental impacts
There are several commercial LCA software systems that can mea-
sure life cycle impacts from a building. Most of these systems can es-
timate environmental impacts from any product or process while there
are others that have developed specifically for analysing impacts of
buildings.
GABI and SimaPro are two of the leading LCA software systems that
LCA practitioners use to achieve product development and sustain-
ability goals in the building construction industry [28,29]. Employing
SimaPro in LCA studies will attract several benefits for its user. It has
the capability of assessing carbon and water footprints. It can also re-
present the output results according to Environment Product Declara-
tions (EPD). Using statistical analysis methods such as Monte-Carlo si-
mulation, SimaPro is able to provide environmental assessment results
with a higher statistical accuracy. GABI has the cutting edge over the
other LCA software due to its improved modelling, scenario analysis
and static reporting. GABI also includes more than 850 LCI databases
which includes datasets for new Energy, transport, rare Earth Elements,
Aluminium and construction materials. It allows you to create a cus-
tomized dataset using the expert knowledge if a required dataset is not
available. The Building Environmental and Economic Sustainability
(BEES) software measures both environment impacts as well as cost of a
product before producing an overall score [30]. The significance of
BEES method is that it takes a multi-dimensional life cycle approach. It
makes the assessment comprehensive because it considers both en-
vironmental and economic impacts of a product throughout its life
cycle. The major drawbacks of the systems are the lack of construction
specific information and the inability to capture variations in emissions
for different construction techniques.
ENVEST 2 is environmental impact design software and is the first
UK based software to evaluate impacts of a building at the early design
stage of a building. It simplifies a complex design process for easy
evaluation of environmental impacts [31]. ENVEST 2 has been devel-
oped by Building Research Establishment (BRE) and is a web based tool
which enables larger data sharing options for companies to benchmark
their complicated designs. LCAid is a system developed by New South
Wales (NSW) Department of Public Works and Services (DPWS) with
the intention of making LCA more affable to designers to achieve design
improvements [32]. It is a user-friendly decision tool aimed to attain a
comprehensive environmental impact assessment of buildings. Athena
is a LCA based tool which can assess impacts of building materials and
buildings. Athena can be categorised as one of the easiest tools for
evaluation of environmental impacts of a building [33]. It requires
general details such as location, gross floor area, building life, building
type and project specific details such as assembly type and quantities of
each product for the analysis. The speciality of Athena is that the
geographic location is taken into account for impact assessment.
However, none of these LCA based building assessment tool has the
 M. Sandanayake et al.

Table 1
Advantages of disadvantages of LCA tools for use in emission assessment at the construction stage.
Software Nation Developer Advantages Disadvantages

SimaPro Netherland PRe – International databases such as eco-invent is available and can be used – None of the databases in SimaPro provides data for on-site construction
in many countries processes
– User friendly &self-explanatory – Unless a user defined process is available it is difficult to analyse
– There is a possibility for advanced results analysis – Cannot be used for hybrid based LCA model
– Report maker plug-in allows the model to link with MS office – Time consuming
– All life cycle stages of a product can be analyzed
Gabi Germany PE international – Easier to model the process in to the system – Issues with the applicability of databases in different countries
– Can include effects due to noise as well – Less amount of data is available for on-site construction processes
– Enables to track cost factors as well along the life cycle of the process – Limited construction activities are available
– All life cycle stages of a product can be analyzed
BEES USA National Institute of Standards and

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– Combines an environmental score and an economic score to provide a – Cannot be used for hybrid based LCA model
Technology, USA final score – Lot of uncertainty in data
– All life cycle stages of a product can be analyzed
– Focus mainly on effects due to construction
Athena Canada Athena Sustainability Institute – The best construction specific tool compared to others – Applicable to only American context
– Allows to analyse the elements of a building separately – Although defined as a construction specific tool, it does not cover every aspect of
– Representation of results is simple and understandable the construction stage
– All the life cycle stages can be analyzed
LCAid Australia NSW DPWS – User friendly and easy to use – Applicable only to Australian context
– Ability to load material quantities from 3D drawings – Only concentrates on operation phase
– Covers many impact indicators – Construction phase is not given much consideration
– Able to evaluate & benchmark cost & environmental impacts
ENVEST United Kingdom BEE – Separate analysis for both cost and environmental analysis – Inventory is mainly based in UK
– High data sharing options – Construction phase is given minimum consideration
– Simplifies a complex design process for easy evaluation of – Uncertainties in inventories
environmental impacts
Journal of Building Engineering 21 (2019) 173–185
M. Sandanayake et al.
capabilities to comprehensively investigate the unique emission varia-
tions at the building construction stage. Moreover, lack of capacity to
capture and store different equipment, transportation and materials
details is another drawback that restricts the possibility of a compre-
hensive emission assessment at building construction. Table 1 provides
a brief overview of the advantages and disadvantages of the commer-
cially available LCA tools. On top of that there are other inventories
developed by University of Bath [34], UK and University of Pittsburgh
[35]. ICE database primarily provides embodied emissions and impact
assessment of various building materials. Therefore, these inventories
have limited applications as compared to the software categorised in
Table 1.
2.4. Current research trend and future research focus
With the introduction of Building Information Modelling (BIM), the
current research trend is focussing towards integration of LCA with the
digitised tools to automate the information flow [36–39]. In addition
these studies have also concentrated on optimising the decisions on
sustainable designs through integrated assessment. Despite the ad-
vancements in integration of different platforms and information flow
management, the assessments and decision making is still fairly com-
plicated [40]. For instance the traditional LCA using standard software
is quite complicated, require expertise knowledge and hence designers
and engineers are hesitant in using such systems to assist their decision
making processes. Moreover, in most of these platforms construction
stage emission modelling is quite complicated with data inventories
having generic information on transportation and equipment. Thus it
complicates the comparison of emissions from different construction
techniques. Nevertheless these platforms are reactive and only facilitate
emission assessment while minimum focus is given towards decision
making. Therefore, it is important to develop a comprehensive tool that
facilitates all the requirements of automated information flows, easy
assessment platforms and decision making platforms.
3. Research Gaps and purpose of developing a new decision
making tool
The background study in the previous section highlighted the im-
portance of an automated decision making tool to perform an in-depth
emission analysis at the construction stage of a building. However, the
existing models and tools available are associated with the following
limitations and gaps:
• Most of the commercially available LCA software either lack in-
ventory on emissions at the construction stage or involve complex
modelling steps
• The previously developed tools lacks the potential to compare and
analyse emissions at various construction activities which could be
important for designers and contractors in better planning
• Designers and contractors seek the importance of comparing the
emission levels at different construction stages to identify the most
critical area of focuses in reducing emissions
To overcome the above identified limitations an automated decision
making tool is proposed to achieve the objective of developing an easy
assessment tool to compare emissions and impacts at different con-
struction techniques and construction stages. The development of the
tool is the initial step towards developing a well-integrated decision
making platform to minimise emissions at the construction stage. The
tool was initially developed in excel based templates using Macros and
visual basics (VB) programming. Consequently, the tool is further de-
veloped into a web based toolkit once the efficiency of the functions
and calculations of the models were verified.
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4. Designing the framework for decision tool
4.1. Identify the areas of focuses
The initial stage of the study focused on identifying the major areas
of focuses to reduce emissions at the construction stage of a building.
The emission sources at the construction stage consist of materials,
equipment usage, transportation and electricity usage [14]. These
emission sources can be further divided into direct and indirect emis-
sions based on the mode of emissions [19]. Emissions due to equipment
usage and transportation are classified as direction emissions which are
results of combustion of fuel consumed [19]. Embodied emissions from
materials and emissions from electricity usage are classified as indirect
emissions as these emissions are predominantly from upstream stages of
the product life cycle. Direct emissions and emissions due to electricity
usage are contractor's concern while the embodied emission is the de-
signer's concern. Therefore, the proposed framework should be able to
address all the emission sources for majority of the construction in-
dustry stakeholders.
4.2. System boundary for the tool
The system boundary of the tool is defined to incorporate emissions
from materials, equipment usage, transportation and electricity usage.
Emissions from materials are further divided into emissions from tem-
porary and permanent materials and emissions due to electricity usage
is also further divided into emissions from electric equipment and
electricity emissions due to other commitments at the construction site.
4.3. Development of the workflow for the decision making tool
The workflow for the decision making tool is given in Fig. 1. The
highlighted in the figure corresponds to the main steps involved in the
toolkit from data entry to data evaluation. Initially the general details
such as scope of the analysis, project and building information should
be entered. Material and equipment can then be loaded from the al-
ready available databases prior entering the information. The user has
the option of creating a new profile, if the desired material or equip-
ment profile is not available in the database. The quantities of mate-
rials, transportation and machines entered in input data should then be
assigned into each of the entered activities. This recorded information
will then be used to perform project, equipment and activity level
analysis to provide a detailed emissions and environmental impact
analysis at the construction stage of a building.
5. Construction Emission Evaluation Tool (CEET)
Construction Emission Evaluation Tool (CEET) is an innovative in-
itiative to capture, compare and analyse emissions at the construction
stage of a building. The CEET collects project specific information prior
commencing the emission analysis. The ability to comprehensively
analyse emissions at different construction stages for various con-
struction is unique feature in the CEET that outshine among the other
existing emission calculation tools. Currently the LCI database for the
evaluation toolkit is based on United States Environmental Protection
Agency (US EPA) database with suitable modifications [41], material
embodied emission database [2] and Australian Greenhouse Gas ac-
counts (AGGA) [42] to represent the Australian scenario. Further de-
velopments will be undertaken to improve the tool such that any LCI
data inventory can be exported into the toolkit.
The calculation process and the methodology adopted in the tool is
not mentioned as it is out of the scope and objectives of the current
study. The methodology and calculation processes are comprehensively
explained in previously published papers by the same authors [16–18].
M. Sandanayake et al.
Fig. 1. Development of the workflow in the decision tool.
5.1. Evaluation process for the decision tool
The evaluation process can be discussed based on five major steps as
shown in Fig. 2. First three steps are related to entering input details
into the decision-making tool. In step 1, the objective is to specify the
stage of construction (foundation, structure or whole building) used for
emission analysis. The information is essential when comparing emis-
sions of similar construction projects. In step 2, the tool calculates the
emission factors for the resource information entered such as material,
equipment and transport vehicle details. In step 3, the major emission
related activities are entered with the corresponding durations. These
details can be either obtained from project timelines or daily progress
reports.
The step 4 is to assign the entered input details (in step 2) into the
activities entered in step 3. When assigning, the decision tool suggests
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Journal of Building Engineering 21 (2019) 173–185
the best option to minimise the environmental emissions Based on the
information entered in step 2. However, the user has the option to select
the suggested option or to assign a different option as per the project
requirements. During the resource assigning stage the decision tool
does automatic checks as shown in Fig. 3 to avoid any errors in data
input. The final step in the decision-making tool evaluates emission
analysis based on the information provided in the preceding four steps.
5.2. Inputs required for the analysis
5.2.1. Project information
The general information of the project such as scope of the analysis,
building use, height and location of the building, number of floors, total
floor area, plan area, foundation and structure construction type, is
essential to provide a more practical comparison of emissions for two
M. Sandanayake et al. Journal of Building Engineering 21 (2019) 173–185

Fig. 2. Evaluation process for the CEET.

different projects.
5.2.2. Emissions from materials
Material details can be entered by selecting a material from the
material inventory database available from the tool. Subsequently, the
amount of materials used can be entered in kgs. If a specific material is
not available the user can create a new material to enter a material
profile. The material details; (1) material type and category; (2)
Embodied carbon coefficient (kgCO2-e/kg); (3) Embodied energy
coefficient (Mj/kg) should be entered to create a new material profile.

Fig. 3. Input data validation at activity level.

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M. Sandanayake et al.
Fig. 4. Data entry sequence for petroleum fuel operated construction equipment.
5.2.3. Emissions from equipment usage
Machine and equipment details are divided into fuel and electricity
operated machines. Data input sequence for petroleum fuel operated
machines are shown in Fig. 4. The toolkit includes an in-built database
of machines which can be filtered based on its unique commercial
model number and machine type. If a similar machine exists in the
toolkit database, the user can select the corresponding machines
otherwise a new machine profile can be created in the ‘Equipment In-
ventory’. The machine specific details such as type of machine, model
number of the machine, power of the machine, cumulative hours of
usage, total operational hours and the average fuel consumption are
required to complete a new machine profile entry. Subsequently, the
toolkit will calculate a unique emission factor for every machine based
on its machine characteristics. Moreover, it will also calculate the
corresponding emission factors for all the emission substances con-
sidered (HC, CO, NOx, SO2, CO2 and PM). These emission factors and
the corresponding machine characteristics are sorted and stored based
on the model number of the machine. Subsequently, information on
electric equipment used should be entered in the pre-defined template
of tool. The following details should be entered accurately to achieve
effective results.
• Name – This implies the equipment type. For instance; tower crane
• State and territory – It corresponds to the state in Australia where
the electricity is consumed by the equipment which can be selected
from dropdown menu
• Power – It is the power of the equipment in kW
• Total Usage – Total hours of operation of the equipment considered
• Load factor – This corresponds to the efficiency of the equipment in
percentage
• Construction stage – This implies the stage of construction where the
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Journal of Building Engineering 21 (2019) 173–185
equipment is mainly used. The suitable construction stage can be
chosen from options available in a dropdown selection. The input is
used to analyse emissions at different construction stages.
5.2.4. Emissions from transportation
After including all the machine details the user is then required to
enter transportation details of the construction project. The vehicle
specific details such as model year of the vehicle, type of vehicle (heavy
or medium), cumulative usage of the vehicle (total km's the vehicle has
travelled so far), fuel type of the vehicle (select from a dropdown
menu), average fuel consumption of the vehicle (in L/km), total dis-
tance (expected or completed) travelled by the vehicle during the
project duration and the transported material (implies to the material
amount transported by the vehicle) is required as transportation inputs.
The material name can be loaded from the already entered material
information for the corresponding project.
Once these details are entered the system will calculate emission
factor for every emission substance of the vehicles used in the project.
5.2.5. Activity level emission analysis
All the activities corresponding to the construction stage of the
project should be entered in this step. This information can be easily
obtained from the project timeline. Name and duration of each activity
can be entered along with the corresponding construction stage. The
entered information will be saved under unique ID for effective com-
parison and analysis. The information on construction stage will pro-
vide an option to analyse activity emissions at different construction
stages.
Step 3 a) Activity details – All the activities corresponding to the
construction stage of the project should be entered in this step. This
M. Sandanayake et al.
information can be easily obtained from the project timeline. The
entered information will be saved under unique ID for effective
comparison and analysis. The information on construction stage will
provide an option to analyse activity emissions at different con-
struction stages.
Step 3 b) Assign input data to activities – Equipment, materials and
transportation data entered in the “input data” section should be
assigned into the activities in the previous step. Information on
equipment usages, material consumption and transportation ve-
hicles used on each activity can be obtained from daily receiving
logs and progress reports.
Step 3 c) Add quantities – Add quantities to the assigned materials
and machines for each activity introduced in the previous step. Once
the required information is entered, the toolkit will calculate the
emission rates for materials in g/kg, for equipment in g/h and for
transportation vehicles in g/km. When assigning machines to ac-
tivities in Step 3b, the toolkit will suggest selecting the equipment or
vehicle with the minimum emission rate wherever possible. At this
stage the user is given the option to choose the combination sug-
gested by the toolkit or the option according to the user's preference.
5.3. Outputs of the tool
The developed toolkit is able to generate emission results of a
construction project from six aspects. The following sections discuss the
outputs of the toolkit in detail.
5.3.1. Emission results at project level
The emission results at project level have the ability to identify significant
emission sources of a construction project. It also provides the option of
identifying the emission contribution of each pollutant substance at different
emissions sources in a construction project. The project level results are the
initial step towards identifying the options of an in-depth emission analysis.
Fig. 6 illustrates the output page of the project level emissions. Emission
comparison of two projects
The toolkit is able to compare emissions of two projects. This
comparison can be performed for different construction projects, con-
struction stages and emission sources. A mutual comparison of emis-
sions at different stages and emission sources for two construction
projects will be beneficial for contractors to identify the critical stages
of construction that requires attention on reducing emissions.
5.3.2. Emission results at equipment level
The equipment level emissions analysis is a unique output option in
the toolkit that enables the users to compare total emissions and
emission rates of all the construction equipment used at site. Fig. 5 il-
lustrates the output options for diesel equipment emissions used at the
construction stage. The emissions from construction equipment can be
compared based on two major aspects. Initially, the outputs present the
total emissions from each pollutant substance for respective construc-
tion machine which provides an option to compare machines with
maximum and minimum emissions. However, total emissions does not
accurately represent the emission patterns of the equipment used. For
instance, machines with higher usage hours and low emission rates may
express higher emissions than a machine with low usage hours and high
emission rates. Therefore, apart from total emissions it is important to
distinguish the emission rates of each pollutant substance in equipment
to identify the machines with critical emission patterns. The emission
rate comparison option in the output is section is a good prospect to
investigate the same.
5.3.3. Emission results at activity level
The output at activity level emissions provides emissions of re-
spective activities at the construction project. Comparison of emissions
at different activities will aid the users to compare activity emissions
and identify activities with high emissions for each pollutant substance
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considered.
5.3.4. Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA)
LCIA provides air emissions impacts of building construction at
global, regional and local environment. Air emission impacts corre-
sponding to global warming potential (GWP), Acidification Potential
(AP), Eutrophication Potential (EP), Photochemical Oxidation
Formation Potential (POFP) and Human Toxicity Potential (HTP) are
considered for the assessment. This is due to most of air emissions at
building construction corresponds to those impact potentials. Despite
the well-developed LCIA methodologies across the globe such as Recipe
and TRACI 2, the contractors and stakeholders in construction seek the
importance of a methodology that can compare the importance of dif-
ferent impacts with minimum effort [43,44] Therefore, the impact as-
sessment methodology is developed to compare the relative importance
of each impact category in building construction. More information on
the methodology and the relative importance of each impact category
at different geographic location is explained in a previously published
study [14]. Based on the weighting factors the relative importance of
impacts for global, regional and local environments ae evaluated using
the resulting emissions.
6. Verification through a case study
6.1. General details of the case study
A case study of foundation construction is considered to examine
the functions of decision making tool. The case study corresponds to a
previous study used for development of models and methods to conduct
in-depth direct emission analyses at building construction [19]. The
building is a residential building with a total foundation construction
area of 6100 m2. Construction site for the building is located in the
central building district (CBD) of Melbourne. Table 2 summarises
general details of the case study project.
6.2. Materials and mobile vehicles used
Table 3 highlights the amount of materials and their transportation
distances while Table 4 outlines the number of units used in each ve-
hicle type during the foundation construction.
6.3. Construction equipment used
Table 5 summarises the details of the construction equipment used
during the construction.
6.4. Activities during construction
The major construction activities for the case studies are shown in
Table 6.
7. Results and discussions
The project details discussed in the preceding section are entered
into the decision making tool to obtain the following results.
7.1. Results obtained using the decision making tool
7.1.1. Emission results at project level
The obtained project level emissions for the case study are shown in
Fig. 6. The results provide an overall representation of the total em-
bodied emissions from materials, equipment usage, transportation and
electricity usage.
7.1.2. Emission results at equipment level
Emission comparison at equipment level provides an in-depth
M. Sandanayake et al. Journal of Building Engineering 21 (2019) 173–185

Fig. 5. Output options for equipment emissions.

Table 2 Table 5
General details of the case study project [19]. Details of major construction equipment used in foundation construction [19].
Case study Foundation No. of Type Local Basement ID Machine type Fuel type Power (kW) Tier A
area (m2) floors environment Total usage (h)

Details 6100 m2 48 Residential Urban 3 floors E1 Excavator Diesel 349 3 230

E2 Excavator Diesel 271 3 298
E5 Excavator Diesel 39 4 230
E7 Crawler crane Diesel 285 2 488
Table 3
E9 Piling rig Diesel 440 3 278
Details of material used in foundation construction [19]. E11 Compactor Diesel 3 4 128.5
Material Amount One-way transport E12 Roller Diesel 56 2 210.0
(tonnes) distance (km) E13 Pump truck Diesel 565 3 221

Ready mix concrete 4962.6 50

Reinforcing bar 82.5 35 identifying the emission intensive activities during construction. The
Mesh bars 1.2 35
critical analysis enables the opportunity to implement emission reduc-
Prefabricated pile cages 48.8 35
reinforcing bar tion options at activity level of construction. It also provides the option
Formwork 4.3 35 of optimising the resource usage by assigning the most sustainable
equipment and transportation options to the activities with high
duration.
Table 4
Details of mobile vehicles used for the foundation construction.
7.1.4. Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) results
Vehicle Type Fuel type Empty weight (lb) No of units The impact assessment provides a graphical representation of the
significant impact categories at global, regional and local levels as a
Concrete mixing truck Diesel 30,000 4
Heavy duty truck Diesel 26,000 3
result of construction. Fig. 10 illustrates the impact assessment results
Medium duty truck Diesel 14,000 2 obtained for the case study. By identifying the significant impact ca-
tegories at different levels, designers and contractors will be able to
investigate the critical emission substances that are important at dif-
description of the emission and emission rates each construction ma- ferent levels. Subsequently it will allow them to help them in resource
chine used at the construction site. As shown in Fig. 7 and Fig. 8 the planning to minimise the critical emissions.
classification of equipment based on their total emissions and emission
rates are crucial in identifying the machines with high usages and high
8. Conclusions and future implementations
emission rates. This will help to improve the decision making of the
contractor in resource procurement and resource usage optimisation to
The paper summarises and highlights the importance of a decision
minimise emissions [19].
making tool in analysing emissions at building construction. The
changing approach in implementation of different construction tech-
7.1.3. Emission results at activity level niques in buildings necessitates an integrated decision making tool that
The activity level emission analysis shown in Fig. 9 is important in can aid contractors in finding sustainable solutions.

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Table 6
Activity breakdown in foundation construction for the case studies A and B [19].
Major process ID Sub activity Equipment used

Piling A1 Excavate the pile hole Piling rigs

A2 Construction of bell-out Piling rigs
A3 Lift and place reinforcement cage Crawler crane
A4 Push and install the reinforcement cage Excavator
A5 Concreting Concrete pump truck
A6 Backfill and compaction Excavator, Compactor
A7 Pile cap construction Crawler crane, concrete pump truck
Raft construction A8 Excavate raft Excavator, bull-dozer
A9 Trim pile top excavator
A10 Lifting and placing of reinforcement Crawler crane
A11 Concreting Concrete pump truck
A12 Backfill and compaction Excavator, Compactor
Other construction Activities A13 Other Excavation works Excavator
A14 Loading excavated materials Excavator
A15 Moving equipment within the site Excavator, Crawler crane
A16 Small demolition works Excavators
A17 Other filling and compaction works Roller, excavators

Fig. 6. Project level emissions for case study.

Fig. 7. Total emissions for each machines used in Case study A.

Within the scope of this study, an emission calculation tool called
Construction Emission Estimation Tool (CEET) is proposed for facil-
itating the decision making for emission reduction in building con-
struction. The proposed model provides a comprehensive solution for
AEC industry stakeholders to estimate, compare and analyse environ-
mental emissions and impacts with minimum effort. By entering the
project specific details, the users can obtain an integrated solution in
decision making to minimise emissions at the construction stage of a
building.
The tool provides a range of outputs in terms of analysing and
comparing environmental emissions at the construction stage of a
building. Project level emission analysis provides a comparison of
emissions from different emission sources (i.e., materials, equipment
and transportation). This will provide a basic understanding of which

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Fig. 8. Emission rates of machines used in case study A.

Fig. 9. Activity level emission comparison for the case study.

emission source is significant for each pollutant substance (CO2, CO,
NOx, SO2, HC and PM). The emission comparison option for different
projects allows the decision maker to compare emission patterns of
several projects prior to making decisions on reducing emissions.
Equipment level analysis provides a complete analysis of emissions and
emission rates of each machine during the project. This allows the user
to identify the machines with the highest emissions and emission rates
for each pollutant substance. The activity level emission analyses also
provides insights in identifying significant activities for each pollutant
substance. This is the perfect platform for decision makers to identify
the area of focuses in minimising environmental emissions at the
construction stage.
Adaptation of the proposed model is the initial attempt in devel-
oping a complete solution to analyse emissions at building construction.
At this point, the toolkit adopts its calculation methodology and emis-
sion factor standards from US EPA and AGGA standards. Authors wish
to update the current version of CEET to be able to select a desired
emission factor standard for emission calculation. This will eliminate
the limitations and errors in country specific evaluations. Another
limitation is that there is no mechanism to check the suitability and
validity of the LCI dataset used for assessment. Therefore future re-
search are encouraged on how to validate the factors such as age of the

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Fig. 10. Impact assessment results of the case study.
datasets used in emission assessments. A complete sustainable auto-
mated and validated tool has also been initiated to optimise economic,
environmental and social aspects at building construction.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the assistance and funding
provided by Multiplex, Australia to fulfil the objectives of the research
study. We would also like to convey special thanks and gratitude to-
wards Mr Graham Cottam for his timely advice to improve the quality
of the work.
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