Sustainability is to avoid depletion of natural resources in order to maintain ecological balance in the environment. Sustainability principles are the foundations of what the concept of sustainability stands for. Sustainability consists of three pillars: economic, social and environmental. These principles are also used informally as Profits, People, and Planet. In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency defines sustainable building as “the practice of creating structures and using environmentally responsible and resource-efficient processes throughout the life cycle of a building from site identification to design, construction, operation, maintenance, renovation, and reconstruction.”
About 40% of all energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions are directly attributable to the construction and operation of buildings. The best way to reduce this effect is to use green building construction techniques. The cement industry is one of the largest producers of carbon dioxide, releasing potent greenhouse gases. According to Umberto Berardi in his book, The Transition to Sustainable Buildings: Pathways to Adopting Green Innovations in Developed Countries, published in 2013, p. 22, “The construction sector is receiving increasing interest in global policies for sustainable development.” The buildings are now designed with plants around them and incorporate the use of renewable energy.
Sustainable architecture is architecture that seeks to reduce the negative environmental impact of buildings through efficiency and moderation in the use of materials, energy, development space and the ecosystem in general. Sustainable buildings use renewable energy and architects are now designing buildings using solar panels as roof materials and road lights using solar energy. Sustainability is now the navigator of the ways in which civil engineering infrastructures are created.
Designers incorporate natural lighting and ventilation to reduce energy consumption in their modern design. The occupancy motion sensor light detects when occupants are in the room and turns off as soon as there is no occupant. This system will reduce energy consumption in buildings. In rooms with good daylight conditions, motion sensors should have built-in light sensors. The natural fibers of various parts of plants, such as the fibers extracted from the stem, leaves or seeds, are tested as reinforcing materials in cement concrete.
Architects are now introducing the use of modern building materials that are compatible with sustainability. They are experimenting with new materials and techniques that have given them greater freedom to create new shapes. In 1903-1904 in Paris, Auguste Perret and Henri Sauvage began to use reinforced concrete for the construction of apartments / apartment buildings that were previously only used for industrial buildings. The safety, stability, and sustainability of a building largely depend on the earth’s crust immediately below it, according to Ken Ward Harvey in Building Materials Basic published in 2009. Sustainability in construction dictates that building foundations are designed according to the geology of the site and that constructions are not over-designed.
Lijuan Li in his book “Advances in Building Materials” published in 2011, stated on page 1 that “Currently, no one can doubt the importance of low carbon living and low carbon architecture. Many new materials and high technologies have been used in Countries around the world are in the process of developing low-carbon architecture, some of which have had a positive outcome, such as the zero-carbon London Pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo.” We all know that building materials are the foundation of the construction industry; It costs a lot of energy. For building materials, going the ecological building materials path is essential to adapt to continuous economic growth and meet the need for sustainable development.
Concrete is now being recycled and reused in building construction. Shredded waste material filled aluminum casing is used as wall material for the construction of manufactured buildings. Balfour Beatty, the contractors who handled the new Birmingham Hospital project, appointed Premier Waste to manage all waste generated during the construction of the hospital. Balfour Beatty addressed waste reduction, recovery and management during the planning, design and construction phases of the project by working with subcontractors, suppliers and waste management contractors to develop and implement a range of methods and mechanisms. Since the beginning of civil engineering construction, the question of construction waste and how to recycle it has been discussed.
These waste management mechanisms included: waste design; setting standards and targets for material waste and recycling; Establishing contractual requirements for subcontractors and suppliers for waste production, treatment and management; creation of recovery schemes with suppliers for specific material flows and the use of closed loop recycling in the construction of “green rooms”; Use of an on-site waste management contractor to coordinate on-site waste management, and use of off-site waste management contractors to recover separated and mixed waste arising.
Civil engineering structures play a critical role in the sustainable development of our environment in that they contribute about 40 percent of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions annually. Any action that can reduce or stop these emissions completely will affect climate change and mitigate global warming. This is why all governments are laying serious foundations to crown the sustainable design and construction of civil engineering. Building civil engineering infrastructure has a direct impact on the economic, social and environmental development of nations. A good example of this is the role of construction in the economic, environmental and social development of Chicago in the state of Illinois in the United States of America.
- Olufemi A. Oyedele, Surveyor and Real Estate Appraiser, writes from Lagos
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