Environmentally Sustainable Building aterials

Building and construction industry brings significant profit to the society. However, it also has a huge negative impact on the environment because of its unsustainable materials. Moreover, some of building materials even are toxic which may cause serious disease for human beings. Thus, the concept of sustainable building materials is proposed. In this concept, the benefits range from conserving resources to reducing environmental impacts, improving environmental quality and accruing subsequent savings through improved productivity and waste reduction (Building management). In this blog, it will focus on the benefits of sustainable building materials. And the details and characters of green building materials which used in our life also will be introduced.

A building will consume large quantities of materials in the construction, renovation, maintenance and operation. All of these materials are taken from nature. As the increasing population growth and the process of urbanization, building and construction consume about 3 billion tons of raw materials per year (Roodman & Lenssen, 1995). It accounts 40% of total global raw materials use approximately. In this huge amount of materials, the transformation, use and disposal of them all have negative impact on the local environment. For example, it may cause air pollution and solid waste problem. Thus, the environment sustainable building materials become an important solution to solve or reduce the impact on environment.

Figure 1

From the figure 1, it shows that there are two main streams to select the green building materials. The first stream is to use natural resources more efficiently and recycle the waste materials for reuse. The second stream shows the green building materials which can contribute to safe and healthy, indoor air quality etc. These kinds of materials won’t generate toxic materials or pollution to the air, water and solid. For instant, a new sustainable building material called wool bricks are recently used in some buildings. These wool bricks are same as the name it shows. Simply by adding wool and a natural polymer found in seaweed to the clay of the brick, the brick is 37% stronger than other bricks, and more resistant to the cold wet climate often found in Britain. They also dry hard, reducing the embodied energy as they don’t need to be fired like traditional bricks (Joe Peach, 2010). It is non-toxic and using abundant local materials. Another example is the sustainable concrete. Because concrete is the largest amount which will be used in a building, it seems that it could be more sustainable to reduce the ecological footprint. For the sustainable concrete, more sustainable forms of concrete exist that use recycled materials in the mix. Crushed glass can be added, as can wood chips or slag – a byproduct of steel manufacturing. There are many other new sustainable building materials used in some urban cities, it will bring significant benefits for local environment and human health.

In conclusion, although some opponents argue that the sustainable building materials are expensive, we can ignore its positive impact on the environment. It is recommended that government should encourage building companies to use environment sustainable building materials. 

Reference: 

[1] Westbury PS. The value of innovation. The Journal of The Institution ofStructural Engineer 2004;82(1):33–7.