Modeling Impact of Sustainability Policies in Qatar using Agent Based Approach and Life Cycle Analysis

Implementation of sustainability practices in construction projects is highly dependent on the policies adopted by governmental authorities. Therefore, it is critical for decision makers in authority entities to understand, in measurable terms, the possible consequence of implementing different policies and hence select the combination of policies that leads to optimum positive results. The objective of this paper is to present a framework for assessing the impact of different sustainability policies using agent based modeling and life cycle analysis. Under the presented framework, while agent based modeling is proposed to simulate the diffusion of sustainability in a construction market, discrete event modeling is used to map the interaction of main stakeholders in order to model selection of sustainability credits on a project level. Life cycle analysis is introduced as an objective quantifiable tool to assess the saved environmental impact associated with application of project sustainability credits as a result of targeting certification levels in light of the adopted sustainability policies. The saved impact on the level of projects is expanded to represent the full market and therefore reach an approximate assessment of the saved impact due to applying different policies. The proposed framework is designed to the case of the state of Qatar and can be utilized for other markets provided necessary customization is considered.