OpenBIM driven marginal abatement cost of low-carbon measures in building design

Reducing carbon emissions always incurs additional costs in buildings, but it is difficult to productively evaluate and certify the cost-effectiveness of low-carbon measures. Therefore, this paper proposes an OpenBIM-based method for analyzing the marginal abatement cost (MAC) of these low-carbon measures. This method uses industry foundation classes (IFC) to calculate the life cycle carbon emission (LCCE) and life cycle cost (LCC), subsequently drawing the MAC curve for construction projects. Taking a public building in China as a case study, it indicates that eight measures show the synergy between LCCE and LCC, while four measures show the opposite. Therefore, this study suggests that building projects should not blindly raise the baseline but rather identify the cost-effective low-carbon measures through quantitative calculations. Moreover, this research addresses the interoperability problem of multi-source heterogeneous data when evaluating MAC stored and certified by the IFC, helping designers quickly identify cost-benefit reduction strategies. • Quickly finding cost-effective low-carbon measures using OpenBIM • Storing marginal abatement cost in industry foundation classes • Avoid arbitrarily raising the mandatory baseline of buildings • Potentially reducing cost and carbon emission synergistically