Dear Tafara Mwareya,

Sustainable development goals in individual sectors of the economy are implemented at a different pace. The environmental sustainability goals are an important element of the pro-ecological linear transformation of the economy towards a sustainable, green circular economy. We know that in order to reduce the level of environmental pollution, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and slow down the progressing global warming process, it is necessary to urgently carry out a pro-environmental transformation of the economy and implement the goals of sustainable development. However, today there are still many barriers and limitations that prevent the pro-environmental transformation of the economy and the implementation of the SDGs in a quick and efficient manner. One of the sectors of the economy in which the pro-environmental transformation is relatively slow is construction. It is necessary to create and implement eco-innovations in construction and pro-ecological building technologies. As part of eco-innovation in construction, construction materials should be improved, which can be substitutes for concrete and are characterized by a high energy efficiency factor. Also, new environmentally friendly construction technologies may refer to traditional old construction techniques, but developed with the use of modern technical solutions. In addition, new pro-ecological construction technologies developed taking into account the implementation of the sustainable development goals should be used to build buildings, office buildings, factory halls and housing estates that will be resistant to the effects of increasingly frequent weather anomalies, climate disasters and other effects of climate change.

Best regards,

Dariusz Prokopowicz

Dear Tafara Mwareya

Maybe these papers will be useful for you:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032120303208

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/16/9112/htm

https://www.mdpi.com/2075-5309/11/11/565/pdf

This statement is not true. Concrete in fact has in many ways useful in achieving sustainable development goals as under;

1. Concrete is a material which can consume many waste materials of the industries like Fly ash, silica fumes, blast furnace slags and rice husk ash. This not only improves the quality of concrete and but you free lot of land wherein these waste are disposed and this land can be used for agriculture purpose.

2. City roads are almost 30 to 40 % of land area and construction of city roads with asphalt creates heat islands in warmer climates. These heat islands can be prevented by use of light colored concrete as albedo effect parameter for concrete is around 0.55 whereas for asphalt it is 0.05 and therefore in asphalt sun rays are absorbed and in light colored concrete it is reflected back.

3. Thermal mass of concrete is more and thus it prevents loss of heat and results in improvement in use of HVAC

4. In the life cycle of the building you require less maintenance, less energy consumption in concrete buildings and you save lot of energy. The consumption of energy in life cycle of the building is almost 98% whereas embodied energy of the material is only 2% as such we need to look at long term benefits of the use of material.

The primitive sustainable development goal is to mitigate maintenance effort, energy consumption and probability of failure in the building construction through proper building sustainability assessment. Furthermore, another sustainability development goal is to find alternative materials to introduce with concrete to produce a sustainable composite. You can find my study related with building life cycle analysis in my experimental findings at ResearchGate.

You can have some idea from this paper as well:

https://www.mdpi.com/2075-5309/11/11/565/pdf

Please, see the following helpful link:

https://www.undp.org/sustainable-development-goals

Sustainable development basically consist with three fillers: economic, social and environment.

Concrete and steel are not obtain as naturally occurring forms of the environment. They are the innovations which made by man as a effect of industrial revolution. So they are not belonging to the natural forms of the earth. Most of the natural forms are decompose with the time and again start new new version of life. (Life cycle). But, concrete and steel are not decompose with the time. They remain as their primary form for many year. It disturb the natural life cycling process of soil.

When considering about this situation with the SDGs,

Goal 11: Sustainable cities and communities

Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production

Goal 15: Life on land

create negative impact with reaching into the sustainable development. However, we have to depend on these kind of innovations up to a certain level. Hence, we need to utilize and dispose them in suitable manner with any hesitate to the future generations to maintain the sustainable development.

Thank you

Suggest the following paper:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/352477826_How_the_AIS_can_Improve_its_Contributions_to_the_UN's_Sustainability_Development_Goals_Towards_A_Framework_for_Scaling_Collaborations_and_Evaluating_Impact