## 1 Introduction  
Recent years have seen growing interest in the reduction in environmental burden, in order to achieve sustainable development throughout all industries [1; 2; 3; 4]. [PERSON] et al. [1] analysed the embodied environmental impacts of apartment buildings by major construction tasks to identify the major source of environmental impact. Moreover, [PERSON] [2] suggested solutions to achieve sustainable development, such as technological aspects as well as political approaches. As a means of mitigating environmental impact, most industries have enacted strict environmental regulations, and also spontaneously researched various approaches to reduce their environmental load. Likewise, the construction industry is no longer an exception to such alleviation of environmental problems. It is reported that annually the construction industry consumes more than 40% of the total global energy demand. In addition, this industry produces approximately 33% of the total carbon dioxide emissions per annum [5; 6; 7; 8]. Various studies have been carried out to minimise the environmental loads in the construction industry, which not only consumes enormous energy but also emits greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide [9; 10; 11; 8]. [PERSON] et al. [8] suggested that the early design stage would be one of the critical stages for reduction in embodied environmental impact through utilisation of Building Information Modelling (BIM). In addition, [PERSON] and [PERSON] [9] examined the greenhouse gas emissions of alternative structural systems with a combination of construction costs. [PERSON] et al. [10] evaluated the relationship between the energy consumption and the greenhouse gas emissions over the variables of life cycle in Canadian cases. The construction industry has unique features that need to be considered when the reduction in environmental impact is addressed. Constructing a building consists of many phases from building material production, their transportation, and utilising equipment and machinery during construction work. Moreover, the whole life cycle of a building has more than 30 years for the operation and maintenance phase, compared to other products or services [11; 12; 13; 14]. Throughout the long life cycle of a building, the building not only consumes a large amount of energy, but also releases a considerable amount of Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) during the operation and maintenance phase. Due to the long life cycle of a building, the majority of studies regarding environmental impact have focused on the operation and maintenance stage [15; 16; 17]. [PERSON] et al. [5] indicate that the energy consumed in this operation and maintenance stage phase is about 70% of the total energy consumption during the overall life of a building. Due to the huge energy consumption in this stage, there are a number of newly developed technologies and efforts to decrease the energy consumption and emissions of greenhouse gases during operation and maintenance. For example, zero-energy housing would make it possible to reduce a significant amount of energy consumption of residential buildings from heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning [18; 19; 20]. Moreover, highly advanced computing technologies, and newly emerging techniques, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), big data, and machine learning, could make it possible to accurately predict the amount of energy consumption as well as GHG emissions during this period, as a means of precautional approaches for mitigating environmental impact. [PERSON] et al. [21] compared different machine learning techniques to predict accurate energy consumption for residential homes in the USA. Likewise, [PERSON] and [PERSON] [22] adopted Building Information Modelling (BIM) for a tool to predict the life cycle carbon dioxide emissions during the design stage in South Korea. [PERSON] et al. [23] suggested a prediction model for total energy consumption and associated GHG emissions, in order to achieve cost-effective energy saving in Australian residential buildings.