Digital workflow for sustainability-optimized and correctly climate-declared residential buildings

The Swedish government suggests a new law from 1 January 2022 that requires new buildings to be assessed for carbon footprint.

A carbon footprint report is usually based on a life cycle assessment (LCA) and is today time demanding to produce due to manual steps and data not being digitized. Digital tools are available, but they only automate parts of the workflow needed to create carbon footprint reports. Another challenge is to ensure that the carbon footprint report corresponds to the final building.

To be able to reach the Agenda 2030 goals there is also a need to include other sustainability parameters than the carbon footprint, e.g., low energy use during production and operation, low housing cost, and satisfactory daylighting conditions during the use phase of the building.Therefore, the objective is to develop a digital workflow that enables optimization of residential buildings for different sustainability goals and make sure that the carbon footprint report is representative for the final building.

The goals are to 1) develop tool and methods to enable optimization and 2) create suggestions for digital work methods that support the creation of carbon footprint reports.

The project is a technical sister project to the more business-models focused Smart built project Customer centred service development based on automation. The work takes off from methods and tools developed by LTU and WSP.

In dialogue with Kirunabostäder and WSP, housing companies’ and technical consultants’ needs for automatic sustainability assessment are identified. Methods and tools are then developed and tested in a case study of a completed housing project.

Results are continuously disseminated through LinkedIn and though seminars and written reports to strengthen the knowledge level and promote a digital shift for technical consultants and housing companies within sustainable construction.