BIM & Green Building

Everywhere I go recently I hear about green building, who's using, who isn't and who should be.

We all know that being more green in everything we do is the future and buildings are no different. The problem is that green building involves getting people to think differently & act on it.

Getting people to think and act differently is no small task, we find the best way to create a change is by making it as easy as possible. With all the great new building information modeling technology available now, it's safe to say that designing & assessing green buildings is definitely getting easier.

Here's how: There are a great range of tools and add-ons that can take your BIM model (normally in an IFC format) and give you a good green assessment. A couple that come to mind are LCA-Design, and the green assessment add-ons for Revit & ArchiCAD.

Another way is by embedding a building product's green information directly into the BIM models (Revit families, ArchiCAD objects), this allows architects to easily see how different products affect their design's green rating and allows us to push that information through to other softwares. We are working with our partner Eco-Specifier to help make this a reality.

What other ways do you think we could help make green building with BIM easier?