Digital carbon footprint of common data environments in ISO 19650-compliant construction projects

Purpose Standards, such as the ISO 19650 series, have significantly improved collaboration and information management in construction projects. Following those standard processes, the construction industry is shifting towards digital workflows. However, this digital transformation has its own challenges regarding sustainability. The growing digital carbon footprint arising from cloud-based common data environments (CDE) is being overlooked by organisations. This research investigates the impact of digital carbon emissions within ISO 19650-compliant CDE and identifies strategies to mitigate them. Design/methodology/approach The Cloud Carbon Footprint methodology is used to quantify the digital carbon footprint across the CDE stages: work-in-progress, shared, published and archived. This methodology is applied to the data obtained from a ISO 19650-compliant residential project. Findings Results showcase that archived data are the highest contributor to emissions due to long-term storage. Additionally, a comparative study on the emissions associated with Revit and IFC file formats, with findings showing up to 12% reduction when IFC formats are used. This study has also highlighted the impact of dark data produced during work-in-progress and shared stages, which silently adds to carbon emissions. Originality/value This research provides practical data management strategies such as version control, file format optimisation and archival limits, to support the construction industry’s alignment with the UK’snet-zero targets and highlight a critical gap in ISO 19650 sustainability practices.