Assessing Life Cycle Environmental and Economic Impacts of Building Construction Solutions with BIM

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to review this interesting paper. Some comments/ suggestions below:

The work would benefit from a final proof read - for instance 'Worldwide authorities are increasing concerned about....' could become 'Worldwide authorities are increasingly concerned about..'

I would like to see a little more about the methodology/methods applied in the abstract

Facing the increaseding concerns about the constructions negative environmental impacts

Literature review is generally well developed

In terms of LCC and LCA and the building components to be excluded and included, where do you/ did you draw the line. i.e. what is included and why (you say what but not why), why have the excluded items been left out (i.e. fixtures and fittings etc. I think it may be of benefit to explain this in more detail and to set out what components make up what percentage of the overall materials used in the building - this is mentioned in lines 169-170 but could be expanded upon.

What level of detail/information do the data sheets included and what is the source of the information in these. i.e. is embodied energy/carbon included and what is the source of this? - some of this detail is provided later on (after the data sheets are first mentioned - line 160 on - it might just be a matter of making it clear that these are linked

Figure 1 is blurry and difficult to read

Explain/justify why a 50yr lifespan is used

Is there a rationale for the chosen case study building i.e. this is a typical dwelling?

Figure 3 is not readable

I would like to see the discussions and conclusions also include a little more detail on the implications of the findings beyond the BIM framework proposed. For instance, what should designers be considering when designing for whole of like performance, what are the key factors that impact upon this?

I would recommend that the paper undergoes a revision to improve the standard of English - to aid clarity and understanding.

Overall this is a good paper and an interesting framework

Author Response

Please see the attached document.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors,

I revised your manuscript entitled ´Assessing life cycle environmental and economic impacts of building construction solutions with BIM´ where you assessed and presented the results of LCA and LCC calculated with BIM. The topic of the manuscript is interesting but some improvements are required for making the text more fluid and comprehensible.

The introduction covers almost all the pertinent literature published in the topic of BIM-LCA. However, the link between the literature and the novelty of the manuscript should be better highlighted. According to this reference https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su12145534 there are five methods linking BIM with LCA. In which group the method proposed in your manuscript fits?

In the material and methods section, you have described the case study and mostly the BIM method. But you are missing the LCA and LCC method description. Which is the goal and scope, functional unit, system boundary, etc. In which norm you have been based to calculate the impacts and the cost. Do you have considered the transport of materials, replacement, end of life stage? I would recommend to implement this information in your manuscript.

 I believe that the results of the case study can be better presented and interpretated. Instead of tables try to present the results in figures, and to perform an in-depth analysis on the best solutions. Why they are the best in term of LCA and LCC. And also, to correlate the results between them if possible.

Some remarques:

Figure 1 is not visible. Please upload an image with higher quality. Also increase the text size.

Figure 2 Is not visible. Please upload an image with higher quality. I would recommend to add also the external dimensions of the building and some major dimensions for the interior walls.

Table 2 is not providing any pertinent information. I would suggest to delete it.

Figure 3 not visible. Please upload an image with higher quality.

Table 3. The numbers after the comma for large numbers have no sense. Ex. GWP 81622.3367 should be written 81622.

Line 237-239. It is not clear. What do you mean by 0%?

In supplementary materials you shall present the full life cycle inventory for a decomposition of building in macro components, materials, transport distances, reference service life, end of life scenarios I would like that you present the LCI transparently in order to have a manuscript fully reproducible.

Author Response

Please see the attached document.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Authors have answered to all my comments. Thank you