The construction industry is often associated with a dirty and dangerous image. What are some of the initiatives that can be taken by the construction industry to promote sustainability?
The third-party commissioning process has really improved the energy efficiency and sustainability in many countries and has been proven to create better performing buildings - much of this proof and discussion can be found in this paper by Evan Mills: http://cx.lbl.gov/2009-assessment.html
The construction industry can facilitate this process by becoming comfortable with quality control processes, educating owners, and seeing commissioning as a potential revenue stream as opposed to a threat to their bottom line. It can help create a better environment of accountability in construction that is a win-win for contractor, consultants, owner, operations staff, and occupants.
I am fully agree with suggestions of Dr. Miller. In addition to that I think utilization of industrial waste by-products as supplementary cementitious materials or in replacement to fine and coarse aggregate should also be done.
Several studies have been reported till date for the use of industrial solid wastes as partial replacement to cement/ sand/ coarse aggregate that reduces the production of cement (production of cement generated tones of CO2 and utilizes lots of energy), quarries of mines/sand beds, mountains and hills for coarse aggregate etc.
Construction industry is the best alternative for the utilization of industrial wastes that prevents land filling and risk of ground/surface water pollution through leachate.
By this, we can make our environment sustainable by developing the sustainable construction and building.
Thanks.
Hi Renard,
construction industries is increasingly in certification of performance of buildings. LEED is an example out of many (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leadership_in_Energy_and_Environmental_Design)
Life cycle assessment has been developed for buildings. There are many papers on this, see http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032113005777 for an overview on literature.
There is also plenty of work on considering social aspects in LCA. I am not aware of applications on buildings / construction industries, but I would be surprised if this hasn't been done.
Klaus
Hi Renard,
In my opinion, besides incorporating sustainability in terns of materials, e.g. using by-products as cement replacement materials etc., structural engineers can also play a major role in terms of RC design. For e.g. the reinforcement provided not to be over-design and to be cost-effective.
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