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The Sixth Assessment Report of Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has highlighted the urgency of accelerated climate actions harnessing synergies and minimizing trade-offs with various SDG. This calls for a clear understanding of linkages between climate goals and other SDGs at national level for formulating synergistic policies and strategies and developing different sectoral programs and coherent cross-sectoral policies. This is even more important for least developed countries such as Nepal where these linkages are less understood and development challenges are multifaceted. In this context, this paper aims to evaluate potential synergies and trade-offs among selected SDGs and their associated targets in Nepal in a linear pairwise comparison. Synergies and trade-offs related to climate action (SDG 13), access to energy (SDG 7), sustainable consumption and production (SDG 12), and life on land (SDG 15) have been evaluated using historical data for the period from 1990 to 2018 employing a mixed methods approach. Network analysis to map the conceptual linkages between the SDGs and their targets was combined with the advance sustainability analysis (ASA) to quantitatively evaluate the synergy and trade-offs between SDGs. The results illustrate the presences of a continual trade-off between emission reductions targets of SDG 13 with per capita energy consumption and share of renewable energy of SDG 7, land use for agricultural production target of SDG 12, and forest area target of SDG 15. This indicates that climate action is strongly interlinked with GHG emissions from economic activities and energy consumption. The results of the study represent a valuable input for the policy makers, supporting coherent and sustainable development planning as Nepal plans to graduate to a middle-income country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction industry is responsible for 40% of the energy consumption and 36% of the CO2 emissions, and buildings are responsible for a significant part of energy consumption in Europe. Thus, a growing concern regarding environmental impacts in the construction sector is in place. Reducing these impacts and optimise the design process is a major priority, and technology needs to be integrated along with the design to allow for better buildings performance. Building Information Modelling (BIM) methodology is one of the technologies that is revolutionising how the supply chain delivers the construction projects, allowing for an overview of the whole life cycle, keeping track of the data along the process, and potentiating more advanced simulations and supported decisions. The tool proposed in this paper aims to integrate different types of sustainability analysis, namely Streamlined Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Carbon Footprint, Life Cycle Cost (LCC) and Level(s) framework with BIM. This involves defining adequate Product Data Templates (PDT) and a database structure for BIM objects, including the necessary parameters to enable designers to do holistic and dynamic assessments from early design stages to a complete LCA. Also, considering the importance of using BIM to visualise different scenarios, a graphical interface will be developed to show the key sustainability indicators and support decision-making for more sustainable buildings. The results achieved show that technology must be taken to meet Climate most ambition targets and reduce the impact of construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]