This article is part of a blog series about building sustainable constructions, introducing adequate processes and best practices to design, build, and operate your assets.
Climate change, lack of natural resources, and environmental degeneration push the construction industry to rethink the processes of designing, building, and maintaining its assets.
Sustainability is the answer to these challenges. The sector must wake up to the adverse impacts constructions have on the environment by constructing buildings and infrastructure that will benefit its users.
The industry should take care of the wellbeing of its buildings’ residents, and communities. How would sustainability help? Let us discover the sustainability definition. In 1987 The UN described it as:
Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs
The pillars are:
Considering these pillars throughout the life of a project from design to demolition, green constructions are sustainable through the project lifetime.
Chief Seattle, the Duwamish and Suquamish peoples’ leader, highlighted why sustainable construction preserves resources and opportunities for future generations. He said:
We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children
Below we describe the three pillars.
The goal is to diminish the impact on the natural environment caused by the construction industry by reducing the carbon emission footprint of the asset.
For example, choosing local and environment-friendly materials, designing systems that reduce water and energy consumption, constructing assets that use minimum fossil fuel, and improving energy efficiency.
The aim is to improve the well-being of the residents and the community around the construction to benefit all people interacting with it, now and in the future.
For instance, creating functional spaces to enhance the life quality of inhabitants. By providing green spaces indoors, we can create communal areas.
The aspiration is to anticipate and manage the finances for the lifespan of the construction to reduce the costs of maintaining the asset and providing economic benefits to all stakeholders.
It can be done by achieving carbon neutrality from extraction to demolition, strengthening profitability for a lasting environmental impact, and reducing heating, cooling, and electricity consumption.
This can only be achieved by the industry if it rethinks how we build and maintain the constructions. It must ensure energy efficiency and carbon emissions are encompassed in new projects and existing buildings. It will also need to include innovation and technology, process streamlining, and adopting best practices.
All of the above will help reduce the environmental footprint and construct sustainable assets.
These principles are crucial to reducing the environmental impact of buildings and ensuring long-term sustainability.
Let us explore what they are.
Using environmentally friendly materials with a long-lasting life minimizes repairs or demolition costs in building and maintaining the asset.
Ensure the energy efficiency process of producing and transporting materials to the construction site and assembling the modules on site.
Another important task is to anticipate the energy requirements of the completed building.
For example, analyzing the position of the building toward the sun, the necessary ventilation, and air conditioning systems help minimize the energy required to heat or cool down the building and reduce the operational cost.
Choosing the right, locally sourced materials and resources, that come from recycled or certified renewable components, reduces the environmental footprint of the construction.
To have a cozy interior environment and robust air quality, when the construction is in use, it is crucial to limit the addiction to heating and air conditioning systems by minimizing toxic gas in the system, using low gas emission materials, and implementing adequate ventilation systems.
The design should minimize the environmental impact on the planet to ensure it meets all stakeholders' requirements today and for the next generations.
Reducing waste lowers environmental impact and preserves natural and scarce resources. This can be achieved by recycling and reusing materials, designing with dismantling in mind and reducing waste sent to landfill.
Optimizing water consumption on construction sites and existing buildings helps water preservation and cost reduction by inserting water-saving systems to enhance their adaptability.
They could be using rainwater, recycling used water, or providing retrieved water.
We explore below a few more questions.
The answer to the question is yes! To start with, it requires a great deal of planning. The process is complex, time-intense, and costly. Sourcing green materials, managing waste avoidance and water consumption may scare the project’s owner especially when on an inflexible budget.
Implementing best sustainability practices and standards like BREEAM may be daunting, but they enhance the credibility and reputation of the firms handling them.
Conducting a lengthy life cycle gas emissions analysis requires time and money and is data intensive.
Supply chain transparency is not always easy to get as international social requirements may differ.
The BIM culture requires adopting sustainable practices and data transparency, making the whole process easier to implement. Employing more professionals in the construction industry will make the environmental, social, and governance principles simpler to enforce in projects, to drive innovation.
Contrary to what is said in the construction industry, data and tests prove it does not have to be.
According to a report published by the World Green Building Council, savings in green buildings are significant: 25 to 35% of energy and 39% of water compared to conventional buildings.
The report suggests it costs 14% less to run than other buildings as it uses renewable energy, efficient ventilation, and insulation. Green buildings are more durable than traditional ones, so they generate less repair costs. A green building, to construct, costs on average 7 percent more than its conventional counterpart.
LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is a global green building rating system. Platinum is the highest rating level in the certification scheme.
For example, the Crystal Building in London, United Kingdom:
It is an all highly insulating glass building rated LEED Platinum.
Modern technologies helped reduce energy consumption by relying on passive systems. The thermal envelope and sophisticated sensor management system monitor, benchmarks, and fine-tune the energy consumption for comfort. The surplus energy is returned to the National Grid reducing the overall cost significantly.
People want to live, work, and entertain in green buildings as they offer better comfort, air quality, and living conditions. It is then socially valuable.
As explained before, a green building is cheaper to run operationally with a high return on investment. It is economically valuable.
We demonstrated earlier in this article that a green building reduces the negative impact on the environment, and minimizes waste and carbon emission. It is environmentally valuable.
If the construction industry, wants to mitigate its negative impact on the environment, it must adopt modern building techniques and technologies.
Sustainable buildings are essential to improve the construction image of polluters and address the climate change issue. So the answer is yes.
Sustainability in construction is about building for the future. It ensures that the structures we create today will be environmentally responsible, economically viable, and beneficial for our generation and the ones to come.
Take the Technology appraisal diagnostic, to find out the best way to insert BIM and modern technology in your workflows, move your organization to cloud computing so you can open up new possibilities for your daily planning tasks and make sure your data never leaves the optimally secured data center.
The technology appraisal report will help you explore what investment is required to improve your projects’ sustainability, productivity, collaboration, and the ROI you can expect.
Implementing BIM can be daunting, but Driving Vision is here to help you at the pace you are comfortable with. Get started by getting in touch now
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