Revit could technically hold all the necessary data within its element properties but it is not currently used to its full BIM potential. Users of Revit mostly use it as a 3D modeling tool, not as a full-out BIM tool. There is a lot of effort that developers of Revit-LCA plugins like Tally, OneClick, or Beacon do to take advantage of the element properties that do get defined, and include some default values for stuff like typical rebar per volume of concrete, deck profiles, mullion profiles, steel section profiles, paint and coating thicknesses, etc. You can build your own database of CO2e values per mass (or volume, or area, or length) of a material or product, collect your own tables of default shapes and quantities and then use something like Dynamo to automate the data exchange process between Revit and external databases. But really, a more wide-reaching solution would be to actually standardize BIM modeling, develop a database of standard materials and elements with predefined and linked properties to LCA data, and store it in a public repository for anyone to use (kind of like the native Revit materials library). Architects and engineers could then use these default/template models as a starting point and be set for LCA success. Without this there is a lot of extra labor and room for error in BIM-based LCAs.
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