Life-Cycle Buzz: BEES Now Available for All Operating Systems

EBN June 2007). According to researcher Barbara Lippiatt at the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), which developed BEES, the online version is “basically equivalent” to BEES 4.0, with a few small changes, including the removal of two metrics: operational energy use for products impacting building energy efficiency, and thermal performance calculations from the use stages for insulation, roofing, and siding. For future releases, said Lippiatt, NIST is developing an LCA calculator for entire buildings; the first phase of this project should be available in 2012 and will measure life-cycle operating energy. The next phase will take a few more years but will include life-cycle carbon footprint, embodied energy, life-cycle impacts, and life-cycle cost effectiveness of whole buildings. BEES Online is available at http://ws680.nist.gov/bees.