Sustainable Material Solutions for Reduced Environmental Impact

Sustainability, 2021

The choice of materials is crucial in responding to the increasing embodied carbon (EC) impacts of buildings. Building professionals involved in material selection for construction projects have a vital role to play in this regard. This paper aimed to explore the extent to which building professionals in Sri Lanka considered EC as a material selection criterion. A questionnaire survey was conducted among a sample of building professionals in Sri Lanka. The results indicated that the consideration of EC as a material selection criterion remained low among key professionals, such as architects, engineers, and sustainability managers, despite their reasonable influencing powers and knowledge of EC. Those respondents who had considered EC as a selection criterion said they had been primarily driven by green building rating systems and previous experience. Those respondents who had not considered EC during material selection commonly reported that they had been prevented from doing so by...

International Conference on Sustainable Built Environment – (ICSBE), 2023

Increasing green construction adoption is at the forefront of the global building industry as society pushes towards greater sustainability. Green building has risen to the top of the priority list for the construction sector as the globe advances towards greater sustainability. While Sri Lanka is now experiencing an energy and economic crisis, green building ideas can support the economy by advancing the building industry. If Sri Lanka adopts the green building concept within the next 30 or 40 years, it might be able to transform revenue-generating prospects in the construction industry. People only take into consideration the construction's initial cost, not the total cost over the course of its whole life. It is preferable to consider a building's Life Cycle Cost (LCC), which includes cost parameters for maintenance, operational and services cost parameters. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to identify the factor that has the most impact on LCC in a green building and to provide solutions to reduce that factor's impact to further reduce LCC. The necessary authorities were surveyed using a questionnaire and interviewed online, allowing for a full analysis of the study. This uses both quantitative and qualitative analysis to validate findings and offer suggestions based on opinions from many parties in the building industry. The services cost was the cost data for LCC that is most affected, according to the studies. Further, this study made suggestions for reducing expenses in sustainable building to ultimately lower LCC. This research study will be relevant for Sri Lanka to address the current economic crises by taking monetary account of the green construction idea.

2010

The embodied energy (EE) of a residential building is estimated at 20-40% of operation energy over its total usable life. However, this varies from one context to the other due to the primary energy used, technological advancement of a particular context and the methods used for the inventory analysis. Despite the lack of monetary value, EE analysis (EEA) is recommended for the selection of building materials at the design stage in terms of environmental loads. However, little attention has been paid to this area in developing countries, particularly, the Sub-Saharan Africa. Due to the increasing demand of building materials deemed to rise with urbanisation in this region, the acceleration of environmental impacts is also inevitable. Therefore, data based tools are required to complement the existing policy and regulatory frameworks. In this study, EE of masonry and roof components of low-cost housing in Malawi will be assessed. The process based-hybrid energy analysis is employed to evaluate energy and the greenhouse gases related to the manufacturing, transportation of building materials and the assembling and maintenance of the entire residential building. This paper in particular, presents part of the conceptual framework of the study focusing on EE analysis especially the methods used and the associated problems based the literature review. So far, it is noted that the inventory analysis stage, which involves the evaluation of energy requirements, is the essential part of the EEA because of the various methods employed. Although the existing methods are sufficient relative to the available data, there is an urgency to increase the process data sets to enhance the reliability of the existing methods. Therefore, in addition to enhancing knowledge and understanding of life-cycle thinking to the construction stakeholders and decision makers in the selection of building materials, this study will also contribute to such data.

World Sustainable Building Conference 2014, Barcelona, Spain, October 28-30, 2014

This article investigates the nature of sustainability assessment of building materials in order to critically review the Sustainable Building Material Index methodology. A literature study is carried out to define sustainability, develop assessment indicators for building materials and describe, and critically review, the Sustainable Building Material Index (SBMI). The SBMI methodology appears to have potential as a way of providing an indication of the sustainability impacts of building materials and products for developing countries. The SBMI methodology is innovative as it provides a way of capturing simple socio-economic sustainability aspects related to building products, which has not been included in many other building product assessment methodologies.

Journal of Architectural Environment & Structural Engineering Research, 2023

In pursuit of environmental sustainability in the construction sector, this study employs a comprehensive life cycle assessment (LCA) approach to evaluate the environmental impact of widely used building materials in Iran, with a particular focus on energy consumption and carbon footprint. The investigation encompasses 22 widely used building materials, utilizing the Ecoinvent v3 database and Simapro8 software to assess critical environmental variables, including carbon dioxide (CO 2) emission, required primary energy, water consumption, and thermal conductivity. The findings unveil the diverse environmental profiles of these materials, with thermal conductivity typically hovering around zero to 2 W/m.K for most, but with exceptions such as lime, aluminum, rebar, and steel exhibiting significantly higher values. Moreover, aluminum, ceramics, PVC pipe, and expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam are identified as higher energy consumers during their life cycle, in contrast to concrete and cement mortar characterized by lower primary energy demands. The materials identified as high-carbon building materials are steel, stone, plaster, rebar, bitumen, concrete, glass, cement, gravel, and EPS foam. On the other hand, the materials identified as low-carbon building materials are masonry blocks, wood, tiles, bricks, drywall, MDF, and cement mortar. This research provides valuable insights for material selection and sustainable construction practices, emphasizing low-carbon materials to reduce environmental impact and contribute to the global effort to mitigate climate change through responsible construction choices.

Frontiers in Built Environment, 2025

Introduction Environmental sustainability in the ceramic tile industry has gained global attention due to its significant impact on the building and construction sector. Sustainable production strategies are critical to reducing environmental footprints while maintaining economic growth. Methods This study evaluates and compares the environmental impacts of conventional ceramic tile production with four proposed eco-innovation scenarios using a cradle-to-gate life cycle assessment (LCA) approach. Environmental impacts were quantified per square meter of gross floor area of ceramic tile using SimaPro Faculty version. All four eco-innovation scenarios were compared against the conventional (base) scenario. Scenario 1 partially replaces virgin raw materials with waste materials (e.g., fly ash). Scenario 2 focuses on energy recovery for heating during the drying process. Scenario 3 substitutes conventional energy sources with cleaner alternatives. Scenario 4 integrates all these eco-innovative strategies. Results The analysis indicates that human carcinogenic toxicity is the most critical environmental impact across all five scenarios. Among the eco-innovation alternatives, Scenario 4 emerges as the most sustainable, achieving a 26.73% reduction in terrestrial acidification, a 23.23% decrease in stratospheric ozone depletion, and a 21.36% reduction in global warming potential compared to the baseline scenario. Discussion These findings provide valuable insights for policymakers and ceramic manufacturers in Sri Lanka, supporting the development of sustainable strategies to enhance environmental performance. By integrating renewable energy, waste materials, and energy-efficient technologies, the ceramic tile industry can transition toward more sustainable production, striking a balance between economic growth and environmental stewardship. This research addresses local challenges and contributes to global efforts in sustainable manufacturing, setting a precedent for other industries.

RILEM Technical Letters

In recent decades, most of construction activities have been taking place in developing countries such as the Middle East and North Africa region. The expansion in infrastructure has great impact in the technological, social, economic and environmental transformation of this region. Construction sector contribution to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) varies throughout the region and ranges between 2-10%. Currently, sustainable construction requires integrated and comprehensive sustainable design including careful choice of materials and methods. Materials that are locally available and require less energy to produce and transport would pave the way to more sustainable practices. Many countries in the region have realised the benefits of using local building materials on the economy, society and environment. This paper outlines the key trends and opportunities of using sustainable and affordable local building materials in the region to respond to the global climate change crisis and to ...

Civil and Sustainable Urban Engineering, 2022

Earth-based materials are useful in building and engineering construction projects globally, but they have largely remained unextracted and wasted, and their use has been limited to rural areas and avoided in modern buildings in the cities. The sustainability market in developing countries is still largely unsaturated and undertapped. This situation is blamed on the lack of knowledge of the potentials, benefits, and characteristics of green and sustainable building materials. This study aimed at determining the benefits of earth-based materials that could lead to the rejuvenation of the market for their adoption in building construction projects in the urban areas of a developing economy. The study adopted a structured questionnaire administered via electronic means to construction experts using the snowball sampling technique in Nigeria. With a response rate of 62.94% and a reliability index of over 0.90, the gathered data were analysed using frequency, percentage, and exploratory factor analysis (EFA). The study revealed that the main clusters of benefits of earth-based materials that can stimulate the market for these materials in urban areas are "cost and pollution-related benefits," "emissions and environmental benefits," "waste and workability benefits," "sound and fire-related benefits," and "thermal insulation and resource efficiency." The study recommended that housing investors, clients, and stakeholders should capitalise on the availability of large quantities of earthen materials to improve the quantity of housing provisions in cities and urban areas.

10th World Construction Symposium, 2022

The building construction industry is globally identified as one of the major consumers of materials. Thus, the material wastage in building construction projects is very excessive. In the Sri Lankan construction industry, it was identified that the main reason for generating material wastage is the absence of proper material selection criteria. The concept of Circular Economy (CE) has been obtained the world attention in reducing material wastage in the construction industry as it targets zero waste and pollution throughout the lifecycle of materials. Applying CE principles in the material selection not only reduces the wastage of materials but also reduces the use of virgin materials. Hence, this research aimed for developing a CE-based 10R evaluation framework for materials selection in order to reduce the wastage of materials in building construction projects in Sri Lanka. A comprehensive literature review was first conducted to review the concept of CE, CE principles and its importance for reducing material wastage in the construction industry. Deductive approach was chosen as the suitable research approach in this study. Survey method was applied as the suitable research strategy under quantitative phenomenon. A questionnaire survey was conducted with a conveniently selected sample of 58 industry professionals to collect the data. The collected data were analysed by using Weighted Mean Average (WMA) technique. As key findings derived through analysis, the level of importance of each CE principle for selection of materials was determined. Accordingly, the CE-based 10R evaluation framework for material selection was developed as the main implication of this research. Various strategies, such as reusing demolition materials, adopting prefabricated building components, developing plans to on-site recycle and using alternative materials were also proposed to implement the all identified CE principles assuring a successful application of the developed framework.

Sustainability

Increasing importance is being placed on sustainability worldwide to limit climate change’s effects. In New Zealand, a sizeable increase in demand for housing is driving a residential construction boom, with new dwelling consents increasing yearly for the last decade. The New Zealand Government’s commitment to sustainability has become legislation through the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act 2019. Therefore, the next stage is how the construction industry can limit and reduce its carbon emissions through one of the strategies, namely material choice. This study was intended to examine the influence of various building materials on climate change and to identify how more sustainable home construction and design in New Zealand may contribute to the government’s 2050 emissions reduction targets. A life-cycle assessment (LCA) was used in this study to investigate the global warming potential (GWP) produced by five case study houses and various material options for bui...