Growing environmental concerns require efforts for application of sustainability in construction industry. Today, there is an increasing need for sustainable building design. Besides, BIM (building information modeling) is one of the most noteworthy developments in construction industry. BIM is used to make the planning, design, construction, and operation process more integrated. The purpose of this paper is to survey application of BIM in sustainable building design. This exploration is done

more »

... y reviewing the existing studies in the field of BIM and sustainable design. There have been few attempts to evaluate and analyze the benefits of BIM in sustainable design, and existing researches have not developed integrated analysis to evaluate different aspects of BIM application. In this study, BIM and sustainable design researches are categorized into some major areas. First, frameworks and design strategies for better implementation of sustainable design have been developed. Other application of BIM software is for improving sustainable design in which some case studies have been presented for this purpose. Another major area is focusing on a specific aspect of sustainable buildings such as using natural resources, energy simulation, daylighting analysis and carbon emissions. Scrutiny review of the current studies shows excellent potential for interaction of BIM with sustainable construction. Key words: BIM (building information modeling), sustainable design, green buildings, sustainable development, built environment. Corresponding author: Khalegh Barati, master student, degree/title, research fields: construction engineering and management . are often used interchangeably. Throughout the life cycle of the construction, maintenance, and destruction of a building, the building produces environmental pollution due to consumption of energy and resources, emission of pollutants, and discharge of wastes. Based on the current researches, worldwide, buildings account for 33% of all energy consumption, 40% of all resource consumption, 50% of CO 2 emissions, and 20%~30% of waste discharged [3] . The goal of sustainable design is to produce green buildings, which are defined by the USGBC (US Green Building Council) as environmentally responsible, profitable and healthy places to live and work. Advancing sustainable design with 2% increase in design costs, on average, results in life cycle savings of approximately 20% of total construction costs which is more than ten times the initial investment. Building design and construction leads to series of decision-makings about energy and resources.