Operational Decision Support via BIM-Integrated LCA Workflows

The integration of Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) as structured data within Building Information Modelling (BIM) workflows for Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) and design and maintenance decision-making remains constrained. Key barriers include data heterogeneity among EPD programme operators and persistent interoperability gaps between BIM environments and dedicated LCA tools. Consequently, environmental evidence is often disconnected from the decision-making workflow. This study proposes a BIM-integrated framework for evaluating maintenance and replacement strategies for building components against environmental and economic criteria. EPD data retrieved from ECO Platform and ÖKOBAUDAT are normalised to canonical reference units, mapped onto a Data Template compliant with ISO 22057:2022, and written automatically into the information model as explicit, traceable parameters. Operational demand is obtained through dynamic energy simulation. The results are represented through cumulative impact trajectories and element-level colour coding. Six maintenance and retrofit scenarios for the building envelope were compared over a 60-year period for an existing office building in Lugano, Switzerland. The global retrofit achieves the greatest reduction in total life-cycle carbon 26.7%, while the combination of external wall insulation and window replacement reaches 18.7%. External wall insulation alone provides the most favourable balance between carbon savings and cost, with a 16.6% reduction and a 6-year carbon payback.