In a second time, the AEC firms interviewed are analysed as groups  rather than as individuals to identify current practice and determine trends,  as shown in Figure 2. Therefore, all design practice are gathered together in  relation to their dimension, creating two synthetic graphs: one for the  medium-size firms and one for the big-size firms. Despite the previous graphs  developed at individual level, the cumulative graphs picked out only the most  significant indicators, respectively “structure”, “experts”, “topics” and  “tools”, with the aim to briefly illustrate the difference inherent design  firms according to their size. Here the focus is on the technical-operational  area that it is in turn divided in sub-specialized units to meet the emerging  issues, such as energy and environment, systems, quality, safety and ICT, just  to mention a few. Every unit is made up of individual experts within  medium-size firms, while is built of specific teams within big-size firms. Of  course, not all the specialized units with the related experts and specialists  are embedded in all the analysed design structures, but their existence shows  the growing interest to the performed issues and their strengthening over time to  the point to require their establishment within the firm. When  for economic and/or organizational reasons not all the required different  skills are present internally, AEC firms rely on external partners to meet the  specific design requirements. For medium-size firms this happens quite often,  especially if they deal only with architecture or engineering, but also for the  integrated practice. Nevertheless, even big-size firms, although they embedded  all the expertise in house and they are technically able to handle all the  aspects of the project, sometimes they prefer to be supported by external strategic  partners that know local requirements and have better skills in certain area to  enhance the project. Environmental issues are generally addressed by AEC firms  and are stressed in different manner within the design process. Here the mindset  of the client and the type of project play a key role in fostering the  greenness that, as shown by questionnaire’s feedback, have focused on energy  and water for the past 5 years and on health and wellness starting from 2016  and beyond. Big-size firms usually comply with all the aspects related to  environmental and human impacts, while medium-size firms mainly deal with  energy issues, since it is the subject that raises more interest in clients and  customers. Concerning the tools used, all the AEC firms interviewed claim to be  BIM-oriented in order to facilitate the exchange of design data but also to  make verifications with other software, including simulation plug-ins as well  as stand-alone modelling software. Indeed, nowadays, every design company is  accustomed to make simulations to analyze the performance of the project, choosing  from a wide range of tools able to meet every design demand from energy and  lighting simulation to impact assessment and so on. In this case, while  generally medium-size firms used the tools available on the market, big-size  firms developed some of them in-house to customized their equipment to specific  needs. On the contrary, the minority of the firms interviewed, involving notably  the big-size firms, use to attach in the BIM model the environmental  information of the products, including external LCA database rather than  personal data. Concerning LCA analysis, 44% of the firms interviewed are used  to develop LCA studies of the projects/services, involving specifically the big-size  firms in all the type: architectural, engineering and construction companies. They  adopt the LCA tools available on the market (for instance SimaPro for  construction company and Tally in implementation within integrated practice) and  the connected environmental database embedded. Typically, LCA is performed starting  with the technological components accountable for the large impacts, such as  concrete, steel and façade, and then working down to the  smaller installation items. By contrast, the resulting 56% of company, engaging  in particular the medium-size firms, do not perform LCA analysis essentially  because it is not required by clients and regulations. Nevertheless, sometimes  they estimate the environmental impacts of the projects (expressed in tCO2e/y),  considering only the in-use phase and so the energy consumption. However, all  the companies surveyed are aware that LCA becomes part of many Green Building  Rating Systems and so that they probably should implement it within practice,  if they do not want to rely on external consultants focused on life cycle  services.

FIGURE 2.

The critical aspect of this type of interview is that the reliability of  data and the amount of information achieved are difficult to handle for many  reasons. First of all due to the variety of practice in question that can be  really different each other, making the process of generalization in some parts  very hard. Furthermore, since the sample population is not large enough, it is  possible to make considerations and determine trends only in relation to firms’  dimensions, flatten the peculiarity of the different type of firms. With  regards to the participation of AEC firms, probably it is discouraged by the  open-ended questions that if, on one hand, were opted with the intention to  affect as little as possible the answers, on the other, the fulfilment of the  questionnaire requires a lot of time and effort by the respondents. Moreover,  the outcomes depend on the role of the people interviewed and from their  competence in design process and especially in environmental issues. Finally, given  the specificity of some questions, the answers gathered risk to be  project-based, strictly related to one virtuous case with the connected  project’s location, type, dimensions and clients.

In order to stress a life cycle perspective during the research project  and the examination of AEC practice, a background activity has been developed  and is still ongoing with the aim to orient and streamline the design process  in line with environmental targets. The effort is to combine, on one hand, the  theory of the scientific community and, on the other, the practice of design  and construction firms (WP3 – descriptive phase).

As stated, due to the high impacts generated on the environment and the  strong international pressure of Sustainable Development Goals to be met by  2030, it is extremely compelling to appropriately change the attitude and way  of practice of building sector. In fact, to comply with the shared environmental  targets, it is crucial to dive and orient in the right direction construction sector  and the related built environment, to achieve great results in a limited time span.  The required environmental-oriented change represents a big challenge for the  construction sector, demanding an even more robust transformation process in a  sector still now considered resistant to change. Moreover, the change  management should embrace all the actors responsible for the built environment,  starting from the mindset to end with practical actions and operations. In this  context, two are the shared strategy that need to be applied. Firstly, the  implementation of Life Cycle Thinking to change the way of thinking within the  construction sector. Secondly, the application of LCA method to evaluate,  change and control the way of acting within design and construction practice.

However, to activate the type of mechanisms able to meet environmental  sustainability, it is not enough to identify the helpful methodologies, such as  LCT and LCA, but it is necessary to understand what are the actors involved and  how the methods can be integrated within the process. To this end, AEC firms,  including both architectural and engineering studios as well as construction  companies, represents the key actors responsible for the built environment. In  fact, constrained, on one hand, by regulations and standards and, on the other,  by clients and users’ requirements, they take most of the decisions that will  condition the building environment during the entire life cycle. Nevertheless,  despite the wide range of LCA tools and software available on the market to  help designers and practitioners in assessing environmental impacts and orienting  design choices, LCA analysis is not common in design and construction practice.  Moreover, when performed, it is mostly considered as a tool to demonstrate to  the clients the green-ness of the proposed solution, rather than as a tool to  compare alternatives and to support decision-making.

In this context, the research project seeks to combine the theoretical  level, represented by LCT and LCA, and the practical level, represented by AEC  firms. For this purpose, a conceptual framework was developed to match and  implement life cycle approach in design process, trying to figure out how it  can be employed according to the different phases of the process. The goal is  to enforce life cycle perspective in AEC practice starting from the early  stages of the project and to truly orient decision-making process in line with  environmental targets.

The basic matrix of the framework, shown in Figure 3, is established, on  one hand (in the horizontal axis), by the different stages of LCA and, on the  other (in the vertical axis), by the different phases of design process. LCA  methodology and the connected stages and environmental information are analyzed  according to the European Standard “Assessment of environmental performance of  buildings” (EN 15978:2012) and Product Category  Rules “Buildings” (PCR UN CPC 531:2014). In  this way, the identification of LCA stages follows the typically classification  prescribed by the standards: product stage (A1-A3), construction stage (A4-A5),  use stage (B1-B7), end of life stage (C1-C4), benefits and loads beyond the  system boundary (D). Instead, design process phases are pointed out with  reference to the documents and reports produced by the United Nations  Environmental Programme “Greening the building supply chain” (UNEP, 2014), by the American Institute of  Architects “The architect’s handbook of professional practice” (AIA, 2014) and by the Royal Institute of British  Architects “Plan of Work” (RIBA, 2013). In  this case, due to the different partitioning provided by the institutions, the  terminology was harmonized splitting the design process in five main phases:  concept phase, design phase, construction phases, in use phase and end of life  phase. Note that despite the similarity of the terms, the stage of LCA method do  not correspond to those of design process. Indeed, for example, the design  phase has to take into consideration all LCA stages, while the in use phase  should consider the LCA use stage but also the product stage with regards to  the maintenance and operational activities. To this end and in agreement with  the proposed framework, Figure 3 shows the LCA stages that can be addressed in  relation to each phase of the design process. The configuration of the matrix  is not valid in absolute terms but may change based on the way of practice, depending  in particular on how deeply life cycle perspective is integrated in the design  process in object.

FIGURE 3.

Specifically, the framework is developed to interrelate design process  with LCA pointing out for each phase of the process: i) the information required  to develop an LCA study; ii) the actors engaged to gather that type of  information; and iii) the related tools and sources used to take data. To face  the complexity of the system and to handle the large amount of data, LCA  standards were taken as starting points, gathering first of all the complete  list of information required to perform the inventory phase of an LCA study.  Hereafter, for each information is explained: i) the design process stage that  can deal with that type of data; ii) the actors who can collect the  information; and iii) the sources and tools where information can be taken. In  this way, as shown in Figure 4, the framework becomes more manageable, being  organized in a flow chart that show in order: on the left side, the list of  data taken from LCA standards and, on the right side, the additional part where  the information required are explained also with the relative units, specifying  the design stage, the actors and the source and tools concerning quantitative  and environmental data. Indeed, it is important to underline that in a LCA  study the inventory phase represents the most demanding phase of the analysis, given  the large amount of information required split up in two distinct type:  quantitative data and environmental data. For instance, the amount of concrete  kilograms located in the building (quantitative data) is associated with the  corresponding emission in air, with the raw materials extracted, and so on  (environmental data), representing the elementary flows in inputs and in  outputs between the technosphere and the ecosphere. The consistency and the  variety of this type of information significantly affect the level of  completeness of the study and their quality affects the reliability and  accuracy of the results.

FIGURE 4.

Obviously, although built starting from LCA stages, the framework can be  reversed by explicating it in relation to the design process phases. In this  way, the designers and practitioners’ comprehension is facilitated and  encouraged by the supporting tool developed with the aim to help them to design  and operate in a life cycle perspective. Indeed, for each phase of the design  process are pointed out: the LCA stages that can be taken into consideration; the  related LCA steps (sub-stages); i) the LCA information that can be gathered;  ii) the actors who can collect that data; iii) the sources where quantitative  information can be found and their relative units of measurement. Contrary to  the previous case, here only the quantitative data are taken into account since  they represent the type of information directly demanded by AEC firms to  develop an LCA study and therefore to bear in mind during the design process. Environmental  information are thus not reported, since they not depend to design practice,  but they can be attributed to database and/or EPD (when available) as well as  literature data or direct measurements, in relation to the phase of process and  the type of information in object. Given the amount and complexity of data  required to develop an LCA study, Figure 5 displays a limited part of the  conceptual framework enclosed to the only design phase of the process.

FIGURE 5.

In this way, the framework allows to join the large amount of LCA  information with the different phases of design process, setting out in  addition the related actors involved and references used. The first key factor  of the framework is that quantitative and thus environmental data are collected  in relation to the phase of the design process. The second key factor is that they  are gradually defined, specified and detailed in conjunction with the process,  becoming even more accurate, reliable and corresponding to reality. The third  key factor is that LCA information are gathered in every phase of the design  process by different actors, empowering therefore designers, contractors and  facility managers for the choices and operations taken in their own expertise  area. Indeed, these factors are crucial to achieve the following goals: turn  LCA into a real supporting tool within the decision-making process of AEC  practice and activate the type of mechanisms able to start the process of  improvement and optimization of the construction sector in line with life cycle  perspective and environmental targets. In addition, it is important to  underline that this conceptual framework is developed on the basis of LCA  methodology (environmental impacts) but can be easily improved with Life Cycle  Costing – LCC methodology (economic impacts) and with greater difficulty with  Social Life Cycle Assessment – S-LCA methodology (social impacts).

As stated in the last paragraph, the  implementation of the life cycle approach in the design process represents one  of the challenges of the next years, due to the large contribution of the  construction sector to the achievement of the shared sustainable and  environmental goals. Undoubtedly, this requires a complex and demanding course  of action, emphasized in particular by two factors: the increasingly  fragmentation that characterizes the construction field and the fact that the built  environment constitutes an unicum strongly influenced by the context. In this  perspective, it is important to not reduce the complexity of the construction system  assimilating it to standardized industrial products and processes, but rather to  consider each system with the related design process in its individuality  taking into account the own peculiarities of the case in object.

With this aim and consistently with the trends currently underway in AEC  practice, Building Information Modeling (BIM) is identified as the most  suitable tool to face the hard task established by the suggested conceptual  framework. The same denomination of BIM allows to make clear its potentialities  in relation to the requirements previously set by matching LCA and design  process. Indeed, the term “Building” concerns the physical characteristics of  the model and stresses its capability to virtually recreate the facility  considering the project-based tangible features. The term “Information” concerns  the intangible characteristics of the model and stresses its capability to  organize the set of facility’s data in a meaningful and actionable manner.  Lastly, the term “Modelling” concerns the act of shaping, forming, presenting  and scoping the facility and stresses its capability to enable multiple stakeholders  to collaboratively design, construct and operate the facility. The resulting  BIM model is therefore conceived as a database that embedded, display and  calculates graphical/tangible and non-graphical/intangible information, linking  each other and forming a reliable basis for decisions potentially during the  project life cycle. In this way, BIM is perfectly able to fit the proposed  conceptual framework and thus to embrace the wide range of information required  to develop an LCA study as well as the plurality of actors involved in the  process.

FIGURE 6.

The integration of the suggested framework within BIM allows not only to  shift from the theoretical to the practical level but also to create a  well-framed and organized set of data of the facility during the whole life  cycle. To this end, the first step is the implementation of the LCA information  in BIM, enriching the set of information just embedded in the model and connecting  when possible the data with the relative physical objects. Note that for the  moment the LCA information in subject concern only quantitative information,  keeping out the environmental information since their values do not depend on  AEC practice and are mainly attributed to external database or EPD. The second  step is the clustering of LCA information in relation to the phase of the  design process, including a wider range of data with the advancement of the  process. The third step is the arrangement for each LCA information of the additional  linked data such as the actors responsible for the data insertion and the  source where data are gathered. This stage acquires a key role within AEC  practice since the sources used are expected to be even more specific and  detailed, in order to provide information gradually more accurate and reliable  in conjunction with the development of the design process. Moreover, also the  actors involved are expected to be various in relation to the phase of the  process, in order to empower designers, engineers, contractors and facility  managers to make responsible decisions and operations in their own expertise  area. These factors become crucial if the final goal is to orient and  streamline the AEC design process in line with environmental target and life  cycle perspective.

By joining LCA approach and BIM environment by means of the proposed  framework, BIM turn out to be not only as a shared platform of exchange among  the different practitioners and stakeholders and as a life cycle information  database of the facility, but also as a feasible supporting tool to reduce the  environmental impacts of the AEC value chain and so of the whole construction  sector. In fact, regardless the environmental data and the methodology employed  to develop a possible LCA study, if the project’s LCA quantitative information  are lowered in value with the progressive advancement of the design process,  necessarily also the relative impacts of the facility will decrease on the  environment. Moreover, in this way, since BIM is already widespread within AEC  practice (although at different levels), it would become a reliable basis for  decisions during the facility life cycle from the inception onward. If in the  next future the suggested framework will become an integral part of the AEC  practice, significant reverberations would be visible at the different scale. Firstly,  the adoption of Life Cycle Thinking in the built environment with the resulting  change of mind of all the actor engaged in the design process. Secondly, the  implementation of the LCA method as an effective decision supporting tool in  design process and therefore the enhancement of the following LCA studies with remarkable  improvements both for the completeness and the reliability of the information  considered. Thirdly, the activation in the construction sector of the type of  mechanisms able to start the process of improvement and optimization in line  with life cycle perspective and environmental targets, as demanded worldwide by  Sustainable Development Goals.

Furthermore, besides the benefits that such application entails for the  design process and, in general, for the environment, it should not neglect the  added value for owners and clients. Indeed, from early design to even the  decommissioning phase, all stakeholders contribute information to and extract  information from the shared model, providing a lifelong view of the facility.  In this way life cycle BIM allows a continuous built-up of know-how, enabling, on  one hand, a seamless flow of information across process phases and stakeholders  and, on the other, a life cycle database strategical also for owners and  clients to have full control of the facility and thus a more efficient asset management.

However, in this perspective, it is important to not underestimate the  following main barriers. First of all, the fact that the framework  implementation presumes the BIM equipment at least of all the AEC firms  involved. Nowadays the uptake and maturity of BIM vary considerably from  country to country and from company to company, according to their size and  position in the value chain. Indeed, for some big companies it is already part  of current practice and business, but most small companies have little or none  experience about it. The second barrier is the need of a “wide and open” BIM,  which integrates the entire value chain and it is characterized by full  interoperability of software and open access to it. While the technical challenges  are likely to be overcome in the next future, it might result more difficult to  change in an increasingly disruptive way the existing processes and to enhance  collaboration, including data sharing. Lastly, the fact that digital  technologies will realize their full potential only if they are widely adopted  and regulated by norms and standards. This task is crucial to create a fertile  environment for the digitalization of the construction sector and, in any given  country, it is demanded to the government, as regulator and incubator as well  as often a key project owner.

Since BIM and LCA are available methodologies and the construction  sector is just involved in the process of transformation and change management,  the need is to seize the opportunity, orient the process development in the  right direction and know how to exploit the most of it.

At this point, the framework has been disclosed and developed with the  aim to understand how to orient and streamline the design process in line with  environmental targets and life cycle perspective. After arguing it, before from  the theoretical/conceptual point of view and then from the practical/applicative  point of view, the focus turns back to the initial subject of the research: AEC  firms. The purpose is to try to indicatively verify the practicability and  feasibility of the suggested framework, analyzing the current practice in  relation to the main issues in question.

From the analysis of the questionnaire surveys available in literature, regardless  of the target audience, the perspective of AEC firms seems clear. BIM adoption  is on the rise essentially because fosters collaborations among many  disciplines and stakeholders typically regarded as individual building tasks, with  visible results in saving time and money as well as improved quality and more  efficient buildings. In addition, the utilization of BIM as a catalyst for  sustainable design and construction practice is growing within AEC sector.  Indeed, Green BIM turns out to be strategic for the following performance  analysis: building orientation, building massing, energy modeling, daylight analysis,  water harvesting, sustainable materials, HVAC design, green building  certification, cost estimating and so on. However, since most of these green  activities rely on external performance analyses software, despite the wide  range of tools today available, software-interoperability remains one of the  greatest challenges for the success of BIM and Green BIM in practice. Note that  interoperability concerns not only the technological level, as generally conceived,  but involves four broad layers of complex systems: technological, data, human  and institutional. The technological layer is the hardware and code that allow  the connection of different software and thus the exchange and share of data  through an explicit and agreed-upon interface. The data layer is the ability of  interconnected software to understand each other and process what is being  transmitted, representing a prerequisite for making the technological layer  useful and effective. The human layer is the ability of humans to understand  and act on the data that is exchanged and shared. The institutional layer is  the ability of societal systems to well engage and handle interoperability, for  instance from the legal point of view in relation to responsibility roles.

Regarding LCA, the questionnaire surveys available concerns specific  contexts but can probably be generalized to all the practice that use LCA. Interviews  indicate that the main drivers for doing LCA are building owners/clients,  followed by designers, codes and LEED requirements. Moreover, they emphasized  that building LCA is time-consuming and expensive, with huge difficulties in  finding and collecting data and with problems in the comparability and  transparency of LCA results. They outlined the need to find new efficient ways  of performing LCA in the early design stages through easy-to-use tools and  database, the need for a better understanding of the relative significance of  the different factors and building part and the need to refine and harmonize  the existing building LCA tools and databases.

Nowadays, copious LCA software are available on the market to encourage  LCA application within AEC practice and enable practitioners to make aware  choices in terms of environmental impacts. Given the complexity of the  construction sector and its close relationship with the surrounding context, buildings  LCA tools generally refer to national context, both for the  compliance with regulations and for the database embedded, even if some of them  take a wider perspective. Just to mention a few, LCA tools developed for  general purpose and spread worldwide are SimaPro and GaBi, while the ones  developed specifically for building sector are: Ecosoft in Austria, Elodie in  France, Legep in Germany, Ecoeffect in Sweden, Impact in United Kingdom, Lisa  in Australia, Athena in Canada, Bees in USA. Each tool possesses its own characteristics  which affect the spread of the methods in practice and the completeness of the  resulting LCA study. The main features to take into consideration are: the  context of reference, that is meaningful to understand the purpose and the  possible dissemination; the cost, that shows the level of accessibility and  diffusion of the tool; the degree of analysis, that allows, if provided, to  perform different level of analysis in relation to the phase of the project;  the database adopted, that strictly influence the accuracy of the study, based  for instance on their updating according to Environmental Product Declarations;  the output environmental indicators, that influence the results interpretation;  further potentialities, such as the inclusion of the technical systems, the  evaluation of cost and the interoperability with CAD and BIM tools (Dalla Valle et al., 2016). However, the problem  is that to offer accessible and comprehensible tools to a wider audience, they  tend to simply LCA methodology and the set of information required, providing  only in rare cases different level of detail. The result is that they are  generally used for finished projects, when all construction materials are  defined, and only in sporadic cases as supporting tools to compares  alternatives and orient decision-making process. To fill this gap and given the  potentialities of BIM, some producers work up on LCA software interoperable  with BIM tools, such as Tally and IES IMPACT Compliant Suite, employed at  international level, and Elodie, adopted in France.

Certainly, the implementation of LCA in BIM provides several advantages  for AEC practice, as shown below. The chance to achieve a holistic overview of  the project including environmental criteria starting from the early stages.  The accomplishment to enable better decision-making by providing feedback from  the beginning on the environmental impact of building design choice. The  solution to the redundant, manual and time-consuming tasks, typical for the standard  processing of LCA. The guidance to material and dimensioning decisions that  mostly determine the facility’s environmental impact. Lastly, a general optimization  of LCA processes and life cycle management. Nevertheless, most of the studies  available in literature perform LCA with the support of BIM but relying for the  assessment on external LCA software (for instance SimaPro, LCADesign,  Athena EcoCalculator and Athena Impact Estimator), recalling the problems of  data- and model-exchange. Indeed, actually BIM turns out to be useful basically  for: i) the automatic quantification of materials and components, profitable  for all material-based LCA information; ii) the development of energy  performance simulations, profitable for the use phase analysis; and iii) the  quickly comparisons between different design alternatives. Still a long way it  is required to make LCA implementation in BIM really effective for AEC practice  and decision-making process.

LCA method is not yet common in design and construction practice and,  when adopted, the environmental analysis performed by firms are not available  for all. For this reason, to understand how LCA studies are generally worked  out, the literature studies are the only reference point. Nonetheless,  it is important to underline that, in literature studies, LCA is performed  ex-post by researchers only for research purposes without affecting the project  decision-making process and so not representing properly the current state. Anyway,  the review of the LCA studies allows to verify the completeness and the quality  of the considered LCA information and, therefore, to understand how to improve  the data retrieval and the information flow management of future evaluations,  also concerning the framework previously proposed. Based  on selected studies, quantitative LCA information were identified for each life  cycle stage, pointing out the types and the quality of data considered,  starting from the most virtuous cases. The quality of data was established in  relation to the reference sources used to gather the information (e.g. high  level if personally monitored and gradually lower level if calculated from  technical project documentation or deduced by statistical and literature data).  Instead, the types of data refer to the information taken into account in the  inventory phase and, comparing them with the complete list of information  required to perform an LCA study, the data currently excluded were highlighted,  suggesting possible areas of improvement (Dalla  Valle et al., 2017). From the analysis of literature LCA studies,  it emerges that in all studies some life cycle stages are omitted as well as  some of the required information. Moreover, depending on the cases, the process  of quantitative data collection occurs by means of the following sources,  explained in order of data appropriateness in relation to the peculiarity and  objectivity of the evaluation. Measurements, based on direct survey activities  carried out on-site. Questionnaires, based on interviews to suppliers,  contractors and/or entrepreneurs. Project documents, based on technical  drawings, reports and other supporting materials of the facility in question. Statistical  data, based on statistical analysis performed at municipal, regional, national  or international level. Hypothesis, based on personal assumptions without any  reference to reliefs and literature. Indeed, lack of data is still now  considered as key issue in the development of LCA evaluations.

The next phase in the works concerns the second type of interview that,  given the multitude of variables on the line in design practice, focused on  real case studies with a personal engagement in certain AEC firms in order to  map ex-post the design process of the specific projects, stressing  environmental issues and their role in decision-making (WP4 e WP5 – partnership  and analytic phases).

The prerequisite of this step is the involvement of punctual  partnerships with some worldwide AEC firms, establishing agreements to spent  few months of the PhD activity in their office and to encompass their practice  in the study. This phase is pivotal for the research project, representing from  the companies’ point of view an effort but at the same time an opportunity for  their workability. For this purpose, it is important to have the chance to  engage a representative number of firms, different in type and practice, to be  able to take a wider perspective as possible. The strategy adopted for the  selection endorses the AEC firms already in touch thanks to the questionnaire  survey. Moreover, to take advantage of the period abroad two foreign cities  (e.g. London and New York) were selected as strategic for building design,  given the concentration of firms and then ideally the possibility to analyze  simultaneously different practice. Since the feedbacks received were limited  and without concrete proposal, the boundary is now expanded to other AEC firms,  especially seeking the ones at the forefront of environmental issues or anyway  considered environmentally friendly. Two different ways are pointed out for the  selection: i) the identification of the projects certified by Green Building  Rating Systems, such as LEED, DGNB, BREEAM, to involve the companies  responsible for their design; ii) the dissemination of LCA tools in AEC  practice, to understand the users of the software solutions available on the  market, such as Ecosoft, Elodie, Legep and Impact. Specifically, the countries  in object turn out to be: Switzerland, Austria, France, Germany and United  Kingdom. The involvement of the partnerships aims to pinpoint the case studies  of the research project. Indeed, a case study is picked out from the portfolio  of each company selected, choosing a settled and possible built project  considered environmentally friendly and possibly equipped with and LCA study.  The decision to opt for concluded projects and not to ongoing decision-making  process is due to time restriction and to the intent of deepen a higher number  of projects, recreating thus ex post the design process instead of supervise it  when underway.

The identification of different case studies aims to understand how  deeply environmental issues are considered and faced by AEC practice, since at  first glance more or less every design firms claim to be environmental friendly  to take advantage for their business. To achieve this goal, the effort is to  map the design process of a growing number of projects, based on the  partnerships feedbacks received from the companies, trying to involve as much  as possible type of firms and ways of practice, and focusing on environmental  issues. Note that environmental issues are here conceived as the five core  environmentally aspects: material, energy, water, waste and carbon as well as  the interrelationships between the facilities and the surrounding environment.  Analyzing and mapping the design process, the focus of the research is to point  out all the resources invested by the companies to achieve environmental  targets and to understand how they influence the decision-making process. In  particular, three entities are taken into consideration: i) the team of humans,  including all the actors and experts involved in the design process; ii) the  set of tools and the assets, including all the physical items, computer and  software necessary to design; and iii) the collection of data, including all  the information required both by experts and tools to work and design.

Moreover, since there is no pre-determined relationship between the  resources of a firm and its capabilities, the mission is to figure out how they  are linked together and the related information flow within the decision-making  process. Indeed, the types, amounts and qualities of the exploited resources,  both tangible and intangible, have certainly an important bearing on the  workability of the firm, since they place technical and organizational  constraints, but a key ingredient is the aptitude of the team to achieve  cooperation and coordination in order to handle the flow of information. This  kind of synergy is essential in design practice, even more if we consider  sustainable design. In fact, contrary to other sector where different issues  are managed in a more or less autonomous way by team or specific experts,  environmental issues involve all the actors engaged with significant  reverberation in the decision-making process. Particular attention therefore is  directed to the design phases in which sustainable targets are set and in which  environmental experts and, eventually, outsourcing partners are involved within  the process also in relation to firm’s size. In addition, skills and  competences with the related tools and software will be matched, on one hand,  with design requirements (input) and, on the other, to final performance  (outputs). In this context, starting from the early stage of the project,  collaboration, coordination and communication play a key role in making sure  that firm resources turn first into “capabilities” (minimum ability) and later  into “maturity” (quality achieved by good practice).

Furthermore, in line with current tendencies that lead to consider  artefacts as small part of a larger networks, systems and environment (just to  think “Industry 4.0” and “Internet of things” trends), the life cycle approach  is stressed as an ongoing and future challenge for AEC firms, to take a  broadening of perspective and to avoid shifting problems from one life cycle  stage to another. To this end, during the selection of case studies, the  priority is given to the projects equipped with an LCA study, identifying the  background of the related experts, the type of information addressed and the  data sourcing. When LCA is applied to the project, the goal is to improve, by  means of the proposed framework, its forcefulness and usefulness in the design  process, while when it is not developed, the goal is to try to figure out how  it could be implemented within the design process and what are the information  already available for the tasks. Indeed, LCA method allows AEC firms to make  aware decisions, gain long-term perspectives and define the most effective and  efficient way to meet environmental requirement and decrease environmental impacts.

After the case studies experiences, the mappings fulfilled for every  firm in partnership aims to depict the design process of the project in  question, taking a life cycle perspective and focusing on environmental issues  and their role in the decision-making process. For this purpose, this type of  interview adopts direct means of communications, such as face to face questions  to the actors involved, as well as a close examination of the set of documents  related to the case study, provided by the same AEC firm but also by external  partners.

FIGURE 7.

The research project is turned to examine the increasingly complexity of  AEC firms with the aim to understand and depict how they are organizing and  equipping themselves in order to meet environmental issues. The effort is to  bridge the gap between theory and practice. Indeed, on one hand, we widely  known how sustainability and environmental topics are tackled at theoretical  level within the scientific community. But, on the other hand, we mostly  unknown how green topics are faced in practice within design and construction  firms. The challenge is thus to analyze current practice in order to orient and  streamline the design process in line with environmental target and life cycle  perspective.

To start dealing with the complexity of the matter, the state-of-the-art  was developed exploring three main subjects: change management, environmental  issues and AEC firms. Thereafter, since the subject in question requires a  close investigation into design firms and their workability, ethnography was  elected as working method, in compliance with the emerging tendency that  consider it as part of the set of techniques used to understand the  construction sector. In this way, the research project conducts interviews  within AEC firms by means of two different models, in relation to the level of  detail to be achieved according to the phase of the project. The first model (currently  underway) concerns a questionnaire survey and starts gain insight on AEC perspective.  It aims to provide an overview of the transformation process and to determine trends  in environmental topics. It involves a large target audience,  focusing on general design practice and using indirect means of communication,  such as mail or telephone interviews, structured with open-ended questions. By  contrast, the second model (actually on the agenda) focuses on real case  studies and demands a personal involvement in specific AEC firms. It aims to map  ex-post the projects’ design process and the connected information’s flow,  stressing environmental issues and their role in decision-making. It involves  punctual partnerships, focusing on specific environmental-friendly projects and  using direct means of communication, such as face to face questions, not  structured since they vary in relation to the firms’ practice.

Moreover, since the goal is to stress the life cycle perspective during  the research project and the examination of AEC practice, a background activity  has been developed and it is still ongoing with the aim to orient and  streamline the design process in line with environmental targets and life cycle  approach. To this end, a conceptual framework was proposed in order to match LCA  with AEC practice and implement it according to the different phase of design  process. The basic matrix of the framework is established, on one hand, by the  different stages of LCA method and, on the other, by the different phase of the  design process. The framework points out for each phase of the process: i) the  information required to develop and LCA study; ii) the actors engaged to gather  that type of information; and iii) the related tools and sources used to take  data. It can also be reversed by explicating it in relation to the LCA stages  and the related quantitative information required to perform the inventory  phase. In this way, it allows to join the large amount of LCA information with  the different phases of design process, setting out in addition the related  actors involved and references used. The first key factor of the framework is  that quantitative and thus environmental data are collected in relation to the  phase of the design process. The second key factor is that they are gradually  defined, specified and detailed in conjunction with the process, becoming even  more accurate, reliable and corresponding to reality. The third key factor is  that LCA information are gathered in every phase of the design process by  different actors, empowering therefore designers, contractors and facility  managers for the choices and operations taken in their own expertise area. All  these factors are crucial to turn LCA into a real supporting tool within the  decision-making process of AEC practice and to activate the type of mechanisms  able to start the process of improvement and optimization of the construction  sector in line with environmental targets and life cycle perspective.

To shift the suggested framework from the theoretical to the practical  level, consistently with the trends currently underway in AEC practice, BIM is  identified as the most suitable tool. Indeed, it is perfectly able to face the  hard task proposed and thus to embrace the wide range of information required  to develop an LCA study as well as the plurality of actors involved in the  process. The integration of the framework within BIM allows to create a  well-framed and organized set of data of the facility during the whole life  cycle, with visible benefits to project management. In fact, by joining LCA  approach and BIM environment, BIM turns out to be not only a shared platform of  exchange among the different practitioners and stakeholders and as a life cycle  information database of the facility, but also as a feasible supporting tool to  reduce the environmental impacts of the AEC value chain and so of the whole  construction sector. Of course, in this perspective, many barriers have yet to  be overcome and solved.

After arguing the framework before from the theoretical/conceptual  point of view and then from the practical/applicative point of view, the focus  turns back to the initial subject of the research: AEC firms, with the aim to  verify the feasibility of the suggested framework. For this purpose, the  state-of-the-art was deepened pointing out the literature studies based on  questionnaire surveys submitted to AEC firms in relation to the main topics in  question: BIM, Green BIM, LCA. Hereafter, LCA tools now available on the market  were identified and examined, even if their application in AEC practice and  during the decision-making process is until now unknown. The attention was then  focused on the research studies available in literature in relation to the  following issues: the models and methods that allow the integration of LCA in  BIM and the review of LCA studies to verify the completeness and the quality of  the considered LCA information.

The identification and the examination of the AEC case studies will  become the turning point of the research project, starting to answer the  several issues still pending about design and construction practice. In this  context, it is important to stress that during the entire work and especially  in the case studies analysis, life cycle perspective is adopted in order to  examine in depth, by means of the proposed framework, which aspects of the  project life cycle are taken into account in practice and in which phase of the  process. For this reason, during the selection of case studies priority is  given to the projects considered environmentally-friendly and possibly equipped  with LCA, to explore their role in the decision-making process. Otherwise, if the  projects selection is based only on environmental performance, life cycle  approach is anyway adopted during the examination and the mapping of the  processes. Indeed, throughout the case studies, the effort is to validate the suggested  framework, identifying where the quantitative information required to perform  an LCA study can be gathered at the present state and which are the responsible  actors. In addition, the collection of all data and information will be  organized in a systematic way in order to be able to compare the different AEC  practice, examining and proving the applicability of the framework in relation  to the type of firms and projects.

Consistently with the trends currently underway, in the next future sustainability  and environmental goals, on one side, and BIM and collaborative and shared  working environment, on the other, will represent the driving factors of AEC  firms. Challenge of the research project is thus to combine the two parts in  order to establish the best course of action for the construction sector. To  this end, a framework is developed, matching theoretical and practical level,  to integrate life cycle approach within design process in a BIM-oriented  environment. The proposed framework will be confirmed and validated through its  application on the selected case studies and will be then disseminate in AEC  practice to orient and streamline, as expected, the design process in line with  environmental goals and life cycle perspectives.

Many are the stakeholders that might profit of the main research project’s  outcomes: the mapping of AEC practice and the development of the framework. As  first, the AEC firms directly involved in the study, because they  have the chance to observe and examine in a critical way their workability and  to optimize and streamline their design process. AEC  firms in general, because they can be aware of some reference practice models,  gathering some improvement strategies and actions. The construction industry,  followed by all the companies that provide design service and tools, because  looking over case studies analysis and the framework application they can  discover points of weakness or strength, in order to develop new and innovative  instruments, methods and services. Regulators  and legislators, because throughout the overview of AEC firms they can be  mindful of the impact that policies, regulations and standards have in practice  in order to manage and adjust laws also with regards to environment. Clients  and users, because they have the chance to become informed about current and  future trends of practice environmental-oriented to strongly drive construction  sector and sustainable buildings. The academic community, because becoming  aware of AEC practice can understand how adjusting training needs, in order to  provide future architects and engineers capable to reason and meet  environmental issues in line with the life cycle perspective.