BIM and Construction Management: Proven Tools, Methods, and Workflows

6.1. Overview of BIM and Sustainability

The face of design and construction in the past decade has shifted the way we are using natural materials and manufacturing them into building products to construct buildings. Our use of the world's natural resources such as water, metals, and wood has resulted in an increase in material costs in recent years. For example, from 2007 to 2008, steel prices have almost doubled (www.steelonthenet.com/prices.html). And as the world's population continues to grow at a rate of about 203,000 people per day (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population), the question has been asked, "How are we going to build more sustainably, creating better buildings and using a better means of construction?" One of the main ...