Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Automation in Construction journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/autcon Building Information Modeling (BIM) for green buildings: A critical review and future directions Yujie Lu a , Zhilei Wu b , Ruidong Chang a , Yongkui Li b,⁎ a Department of Building, School of Design and Environment, National University of Singapore, Singapore b School of Economics and Management, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Building Information Modeling (BIM) BIM software Green buildings Life cycle Review Sustainability ABSTRACT Although a large number of studies on Building Information Modeling (BIM) have been conducted in the past decade, a lack of consensus remains among researchers and practitioners regarding the applications of BIM for the development of green buildings, the activity of making buildings in a way that protects the natural en- vironment. As the usefulness of BIM has been widely recognized in the building and construction industry, there is an urgent need to establish an up-to-date synthesis on the nexus between BIM and green buildings. After an in- depth review of hundreds of journal articles published from 1999 to 2016 and 12 widely used types of BIM software, this study provides a holistic understanding and critical reflection on the nexus between BIM and green buildings, which is systematically illustrated by a “Green BIM Triangle” taxonomy. The proposed taxonomy indicates that the nexus between BIM and green buildings needs to be understood based on three dimensions, namely project phases, green attributes and BIM attributes. Following the proposed taxonomy, this paper sys- tematically illustrated 1) the applications of BIM in supporting the design, construction, operation, and retro- fitting processes of green buildings; 2) the various functions of BIM for green building analyses such as energy, emissions, and ventilation analysis; 3) the applications of BIM in supporting green building assessments (GBA); and 4) research gaps and future research directions in this area. Through critical review and synthesis of BIM and green buildings based on evidence from both academic research and industrial practices, this paper provides important guidance for building researchers and practitioners to better align BIM development with green building development in the future. 1. Introduction The building and construction industry has been driven to adopt green building strategies in light of increasing sustainability concerns such as reducing CO 2 emission and energy dependency on fossil fuels [1,123,124]. As a revolutionary technology and process, Building In- formation Modeling (BIM) has been regarded by many as a significant opportunity in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry. BIM emerged as a solution to facilitate the integration and management of information throughout the building life cycle [11], thereby providing an opportunity for making the best use of the available design data for sustainable design and performance analysis [2]. As BIM and green building both continuously gain momentum, growing AEC firms are embarking on green BIM practices [121]. An online survey conducted by McGraw-Hill Construction investigated a wide range of industry professionals who use BIM tools for delivering green buildings, showing that BIM could significantly facilitate green construction and it is expected to be extensively used in the future if relevant challenges could be identified and effectively tackled. Since 1999, when the concepts and technologies related to BIM application were first discussed [1], continuous efforts have been made in exploring the possibility of BIM in facilitating the development of green buildings. Various functions of BIM have been studied, such as energy perfor- mance simulation, lighting analysis, and construction and demolition waste analysis. Different management aspects associated with BIM adoption have been highlighted, such as its economic benefits and or- ganizational challenges [2–8]. A number of BIM applications have been proposed and developed to seamlessly integrate sustainability analysis into traditional design, construction, and operation processes. Although BIM has been advocated for its potential to support green building development in the past decades, few systematic literature review was conducted to delineate the state-of-the-art development of the connections between BIM and sustainable building development based on both academic research and industrial practices [6,9]. Wong and Zhou [11], for instance, presented an important review of the academic research efforts in BIM and green buildings, but paid less http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.autcon.2017.08.024 Received 3 February 2017; Received in revised form 6 June 2017; Accepted 10 August 2017 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: luy@nus.edu.sg (Y. Lu), bdgcr@nus.edu.sg (R. Chang), lyk@tongji.edu.cn (Y. Li). Automation in Construction 83 (2017) 134–148 0926-5805/ © 2017 Published by Elsevier B.V. MARK