Dr Omar Amoudi

The construction sector is one of the highest consumers of raw and natural resources around the world, using 3 billion tons per annum (The Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2013). In addition to this high consumption level, it is also responsible for the majority of the waste in the majority of countries throughout the world. For instance, in the UK, waste from the construction industry covers 50% of the total percentage of waste
(PricewaterhouseCoopers Network, 2015). In the USA, the Environmental Protection Agency (2009) reported that the construction industry generates approximately 26% of total waste. Therefore, any model that focuses on consumption rather than restoration of resources will have a negative impact on the value chain and will incur critical losses of resources including losses in the production stage, end of product life, disrobing of
ecosystem services, as well as imbalances affecting economic growth (Cheshire, 2016). While linear consumption has numerous effects on areas including economic, social, and environmental aspects, CE plays a critical role in minimizing these losses within the construction sector. The aim of this chapter is to determine the CE principles over the construction project life cycle at the micro, meso, and macro levels. There will be a critical focus on CE principles relating to buildings and materials. A conceptual framework will then be developed to demonstrate the interactions between CE principles and project life cycle stages.
The rest of the chapter briefly presents the methodology adopted, concept and principles of CE in the built environment at various levels, various techniques, tools, and circular models used to enhance circular economy (CE) in the built environment considering various project life cycle phases, and at the end, a conceptual circular model is developed to demonstrate the interactions and linkages between CE principles and project life cycles.

The adoption of Building Sustainability Assessment (BSA) systems is becoming a growing trend, but it has been criticised for being inconsistent and resourceconsuming. Recent development of Building Information Modelling (BIM) could help facilitate the BSA process. There has been useful research conducted in this area but there has been limited focus on the practitioner’s perspective. This paper fills that gap by exploring the practitioners outlook on the subject. The main aim is to develop a conceptual framework that compiles the wisdom of both theory and practice. Twostep method was adopted; a survey targeting different practitioners, followed by semistructured interviews with selected experts. Lack of knowledge and data exchange limitations were ranked highest among the survey respondents, while the level of information (LOI) and BIM libraries attracted more attention by the experts. Additionally, new challenges were introduced and new research areas to promote the development of BIM-based BSA were uncovered.

Building sustainability assessment (BSA) is perceived as one of the major pillars of sustainable development, its adoption is increasing and many governments are embracing them. However, in order to meet the requirements of these processes, complicated tasks which consume considerable amounts of resources are involved. On the other hand, BIM has been acknowledged as a key solution to industry issues and a leading driver for innovation. However, the utilization of BIM to support BSA is still at a premature stage compared to other BIM applications. This paper aims to review relevant literature to determine the research trends within the field and identify the possible reasons behind the slow and reluctant development of this synergy. A three-step systematic literature review approach is adopted. First, literature was surveyed to identify all published Green-BIM studies within the past ten years. Second, identified publications are filtered according to pre-defined criteria to select the most-relevant. The last step involves the analysis of the filtered articles and the categorisation of the findings. The review has indicated a significant research tendency towards the area of Green BIM. However, it was apparent that BIM has yet to be properly aligned with BSA practices. A range of challenges facing the BIM-based BSA process has been identified and classified into three-major classes: BIM-related, BSA-related and Organisation-related.

The quantity surveying profession on the international platform has adopted automated quantities technology through the Building Information Modelling (BIM) to provide up-to date sophisticated cost management services to take care of the implementation of time management and cost display and subsequently share the cost data with various stakeholders. This strategy aims to promote the integrated delivery approach which BIM is providing. It is fundamentally important to have a BIM model incorporated with the method of measurement to enable shifting from the traditional approach to a fully integrated platform whereby sharing and working on the same information is paramount. The difficulties encountered during the process of shifting from the traditional method to an automated system was the lack of standard between BIM and the New rule of Measurement (NRM1). This research is aimed to study the incompatibility between the software application and (NRM1) which was and is still the biggest issue to implement BIM in the construction industry. In order to bring an interface between the software application and the NRM1, the author has investigated a coding system. This coding system is made compatible with the interfaces of the software and the NRM1 so as to enable interoperability of all team parties to understand the entire principles of BIM. A BIM Model designed, incorporated the calculated coding data of elements established from NRM1 was initially tested. The results obtained, showed that the approximate Bill of Quantities derived from the model linked the standard specification of NRM1 with the BIM software interface.

Despite the significant role of the construction industry in nation’s wealth anddevelopment, the construction industry usually suffers from poor performance interms of time and cost overruns. This is due to its characteristics in terms ofcomplexity, fragmented nature, a large number of involved parties and a wide rangeof professions. Quantity surveyors (QSs) profession is one of the key professionswith many essential tasks over project life cycle. BIM has been claimed by variousprofessions in the construction industry to enhance the project performance and tacklemany problems within it. This research aims to evaluate the effectiveness of adoptingBIM on QS profession and its performance in a construction project. The literaturewas intensively reviewed to determine the main responsibilities of QS over projectlife cycle when it works the main project parties (client and consultant). In this partof research, the implication of the use of BIM has been specifically dealt with thework in pre-construction stage. A set of criteria were extracted and identified basedon the main responsibilities of QS profession by conducting structured interviewswith clients and consultants. Many scenarios were produced, after modelling a multi-storey building project utilizing Revit Architecture Software, to reflect theeffectiveness of using BIM with various tasks of QSs. The model facilitatesgeneration of different scenarios based on outcomes. The initial results revealed thatadopting BIM improves the accuracy and reliability of QSs outputs at early stage ofproject and enhances the documentation of project performance over project lifecycle. Also, the results demonstrate that project parties get benefits, from BIMadoption by their QSs, in terms of more reliable budgeting, less errors in quantitiesmeasurement, better documentation considering the limitation of adopting BIM, lackof BIM standard and the compatibility between the BIM software.