Towards a deployable framework of applying green building information modelling (Green BIM) in Hong Kong

Abstract

Buildings in Hong Kong account for 90% of the total electricity usage in the city, which urges the AEC industry to leap towards a more environmentally friendly future. To reduce the negative environmental influence brought by the building lifecycle, there has been an increasing concern on making the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry more environmentally sustainable. Green Building Information Modeling (Green BIM) is a building technology that can serve as a solution to enhance environmentally sustainability in the AEC industry. Green BIM is defined as the use of Building Information Modeling (BIM) to promote building environmental sustainability during building lifetime. Different from BIM, which is a digital platform enabling construction project data to be created and managed by construction professionals, Green BIM is a concept extending beyond BIM with the addition of environmental sustainability purpose. Motivated by 3 research gaps of insufficient literatures on Green BIM in the context of Hong Kong, lack of localized Green BIM deployable frameworks and lack of research on Green BIM throughout all stages in building lifecycle, this research aims to investigate 4 research objectives including status-quo, major motivaions, major hurdles of applying Green BIM in Hong Kong, and to advise the strategies with a deployable framework to lower the hurdles and boost Green BIM applications in Hong Kong. This resreach investigates the objectives by a mixed method approach. Among the 5 types of research methodologies used in this research, literature review, case studies, interview and Design Science Research Methodology are conducted for qualitative research, while questionnaire survey contributes to quantitative research. Research findings purported that status-quo of Green BIM applications in Hong Kong can be concluded as being immature where efforts and awareness among AEC industry players on Green BIM applications are remained to be increased. This is supported by quetsionnaire survey findings that an overwhelming 89% of survey respondents have never heard about the Green BIM concept. Furthermore, research findings also proposed that major motivations of applying Green BIM in Hong Kong can be categorized into 4 stages namely motivations at design stage, construction stage, operation stage, and renovation stage. Particularly, establishing green building designer collaboration platform at deisgn stage has obtained the top ranking of importance among all motivations with highest mean of 4.21 out of the 5- point Likert scale question. In contrast, evaluating potential usage of renewable energy in existing buildings at operation stage was at the last rank with lowest mean of 2.69. Moreover, resrach findings indicated that hurdles of applying Green BIM in Hong Kong can be categorized into 4 aspects including hurdles under economic aspect, social aspect, technical aspect and management aspect. Shortage of Green BIM professionals under technical aspect has obtained the top ranking of importance among all hurdles with the overwhelming highest mean of 4.42. In opposite, lack of research to quantify the value of Green BIM under social aspect was at the last rank with the lowest mean of 2.85. Last but not least, in order to advise the strategies with a deployable framework to lower the hurdles and boost Green BIM applications in Hong Kong, this research proposed 9 strategies under 3 approaches of stakeholders, and a deployable framework was eventually developed for applying Green BIM in Hong Kong. The three pillars People, Process and Technology in the final Green BIM deployable framework, together with the critical success factors, contributed to the four domains acting as driving forces to encourage the implementation of the 9 strategies. It is envisioned that the final deployable framework of applying Green BIM in Hong Kong can fulfill its aims to propose solutions and strategies to lower the hurdles and boost Green BIM applications in Hong Kong, thus contributing to steer the Hong Kong AEC industry towards a more environmentally sustainable future.