BEES Online — The Complete Guide: Choosing Building Products by Environment and Cost
BEES Online (Building for Environmental and Economic Sustainability) is a NIST tool that helps you choose between alternative building products, such as types of cladding, insulation or flooring. It looks at each product from two angles: its environmental impact over the life cycle, and what it costs over the years of use — not just at purchase.
BEES Online (Building for Environmental and Economic Sustainability)
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
NIST's online tool for choosing building products by environmental (LCA) and economic (life cycle cost) performance.
Get it from the vendorWhat you get
- Environmental performance — life cycle assessment to the ISO 14040 series.
- Economic performance — ASTM life-cycle cost: investment, replacement, operation, maintenance and disposal.
- UNIFORMAT II structure — pick by element group such as shell, interiors or sitework.
- Comparison within a category — several products side by side for the same function.
- No installation — runs in the browser with no registration or payment.
A note for readers outside the US
The environmental data and prices reflect the US market, and some categories from the previous version have not yet been converted to the current one. For a project in Israel or elsewhere, use it for relative comparison between product types and to understand the method, not as a source of final figures for a sustainability report.
Related tools
For whole-building LCA at the design stage — Athena Impact Estimator. For general open-source LCA with international databases — openLCA. For a full economic analysis of alternatives — BLCC.
Athena Impact Estimator for Buildings
Athena Sustainable Materials Institute
Free tool for life cycle assessment (LCA) of whole buildings and assemblies, right from the conceptual design stage.
Get it from the vendor
openLCA
GreenDelta
Open-source software for life cycle assessment (LCA) and carbon footprint calculation of products, materials and processes.
Get it from the vendor
BLCC (Building Life-Cycle Cost)
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) / U.S. DOE FEMP
NIST's life cycle cost (LCC) analysis tool for comparing building design alternatives, now a web application.
Get it from the vendor
Bonsai (BlenderBIM)
IfcOpenShell
Native IFC editing inside Blender — open-source BIM.
Get it from the vendorThe bottom line
BEES Online is a quick way to see that a product cheap to buy is not always the cheapest or greenest over time. A good learning and comparison tool, with coverage that is still partial.