Construction industry is one of the significant industries in Canada. The low interest rates in Canada fuelled the demand of housing, which brings the Canadian construction industry with a CAGR of 2% between 2008 and 2012 (Companies and Markets, 2013). The fact is that building construction has a considerable effect on the environment. It is a major consumer of raw materials, land and energy, as well as generates a mass of Greenhouse gas and other pollution (USA EPA, 2008). According to the data from Statistics Canada (2012), the construction sector produced 2.1% of total Canadian industrial sector’s GHG emissions in 2008. The purpose of this project is to convince the construction companies in Waterloo region to adapt feasible best practices for GHG emission reduction during construction process. Therefore, guidance for GHG emissions calculation and best practices should be determined firstly.
Before promoting those best practices to the construction companies in Waterloo, proper guidance of GHG emissions calculation should be provided firstly in order to help them calculate their GHG emissions and determine their problems. Considering this issue, some protocols can be used, which include inventory, toolsets and guidance for GHG emissions calculation (Matthews, Hendrickson & Weber, 2008).
Best practices are defined as methods or technique that are consistently verified to be superior to other means, and can sometimes be used for benchmarking (Business Dictionary, 2012). The proposed best practices for construction industries should be cost-efficient and feasible and accord to construction life cycle. As indicated by lots of literatures, construction life cycle should be divided into manufacture and transportation of building mate...
... middle of paper ...
...erature review has indicated that there is a research gap in applying best practices to construction companies in Waterloo Region. M5 group will work with MMM Consulting Company from January to April in 2014 to find out how this gap can be filled. The expected research would be based on the opinions of construction companies in Waterloo Region on conducting best practices to make better environment performance. By determining those companies who are willing to be better in environment performance, further research would be conducted to find out if those best practices are feasible and achievable by providing proper emission calculation and best practices guidance. The purpose of this research is to promote those feasible and cost-effective best practices to construction companies in Waterloo Region in order to help them achieve their goal of reducing GHG emission.
This essay will focus on what BREEAM is, how it can help individuals and businesses realise the benefits and value of designing and operating a sustainable building. It’s a set of standards and certification schemes that measures sustainable value in the built environment. BREEAM stands for Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Methodology and it’s a global sustainability standard and rating system for buildings. BREEAM is used as a ‘label’ on over 200000 buildings and is currently being applied to clients in over 50 different countries on 40000 projects. The BREEAM mark provides clients and the market with a clear statement about the quality of the building and its environmental performance.
Reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission, particularly from industrial production, to combat global climate change is one of the biggest sustainable development challenge for the international community. Countries are adopting Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs), low carbon development strategies and climate change policies to tackle issues of climate change and at the same time meet their development goals. At the global level, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and Kyoto Protocol, have paved ways for voluntary GHG emission reduction targets. To facilitate the mitigation actions, carbon intensities of production process are tracked and GHG inventories are developed. Such accounting of GHGs is a common practice in developed countries and is increasingly being adopted in developing countries as well. However, need for an internationally acceptable standardized and comparable GHG accounting and reporting was felt necessary that lead to the establishment of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG Protocol), which has developed protocols, standards and guidelines for the objective.
...gy use and carbon emissions in modern dwellings." International Journal of Low Carbon Technologies 4.3 (2009): 141-149. GreenFILE. EBSCO. Web. 21 Feb. 2011.
In order to estimate the environmental impact of a construction material, it is necessary to consider all stages
A green building (also referred to as sustainable building or green construction) is a structure that employs an approach that is responsible for the environment besides being efficient in regard to resources all through its life cycle: This is from selecting the site to designing it, constructing, operating, maintaining, renovating and demolishing it. To achieve this, the client, the engineers, the architects and the entire design team closely cooperate at all stages of a project (Yan and Paliniotis, 2006). Practicing Green Building complements and expands the conventional building design areas of comfort, durability, utility and economy.
Vandecasteele, C. & van der Sloot, H. A., 2011. Sustainable management of waste and recycled materials in construction. Waste Management, Volume 31, pp. 199-200.
Using particular case studies I am going to list factors and ideas of companies that have prevented CO2 emissions using eco-technology. As a lot of companies have started conforming with the occurring climate changes, a priority for most of them has become the need to reduce emissions and provide future for themselves rather than centralize on lowering their costs as much as possible, as I has been until now. I have chosen to research three companies, differentiating in their fields of work. I will be observing through the case studies how ones projects each year can affect the CO2 emissions and do the companies actually take in consideration avoiding to the greatest harming the environment and being positively sure that they are co-operating in lowering the levels of pollution in the atmosphere.
The use of green materials is better for the environment because they have a positive impact on the planet. Looking at our environment today we see a place that has been facing a massive climate change. Scientists have been concerned over global warming for decades. The ongoing increase of the earth’s temperature is believed to be caused by the greenhouse effect (“Global Warming” 27). Building with green materials produces significantly lower greenhouse gas emission. Specifically, wood as a material for building products, requires considerably less energy than other building products such as steel and concrete. Wood product manufacture results in fewer greenhouse gas and other air-polluting emissions (“Green Building Benefits”). Green building also results in waste reduction. In the United States, construction and demolition creates a huge amount of solid waste. Green building limits the waste prod...
To achieve a clearer path to a better understanding of the environmental (E) disaster taking place in science and technology, with the help of accounting is available. Accounting is a technical which is very important in all aspects of the environmental economics and management. Although it is somewhat remarkable that governments have imposed strict rules, but with a sense of responsibility felt in the minds of investors, playing the role of contractors, construction areas, can be reason to comply with strict rules. Construction and Demolition (C&D) costs for both the environment and the economy are important and the flow of material , the quality of materials, recycling process, reuse process of materials and proper disposal of waste material for both the environment and the economy should be considered to achieve green goals for building projects. Review of economic calculations in construction projects and incorporate them with environmental concerns as a E
Although balancing between mitigation and adaptation strategies is still considered in international and national level in different sectors, it displays some important linkages in project level in building sector. IPCC TAR concluded appropriate optimization between mitigation and adaptation will be long and boring process and optimum mix of response options will be vary by time and country (place) as local condition and cost modify (Richard J.T. Klein et al., 2003). Some central shortcoming of optimizing mitigation and adaptation strategies in the project level are, namely, Uncertainty, irrespective of the diversity of economic values and preference within and between society, Equity or fairness for distributional cost of impacts (burden sharing), local conditions. Richard J.T. Klein et al. (2003) state in absent of perfect information, a number of alternative mixes of mitigation adaptation and mitigation strategies may be proposed which different in their economic, social and environmental impacts. For instance, while one option may be equitable and environmentally suitable, it might be cost-effective than other options, although be less environmentally and socially acceptable. These authors present to identify which mix or mixes of options are justifiable, some multi-criteria framework needs to be designed with which one can capture, quantify and compare the direct and dependent effects of application of each these or other possible criteria.
Maczulack, Anne, Elizabeth. Environmental Engineering: Designing a Sustainable Future. New York, NY: Facts on File Publishers, 2010. Print.
The Construction industry in the US has faced some interesting changes throughout its progression. From economic instability during the housing market crash to amazing technological advances to reduce the need for construction workers and therefore the cost associated with newly built properties in the real estate market. Beginning with the first tools ancient man used to carve their niche in the soon to be global expansion of arguably one of the oldest trades in history, construction has a rich history of trial and error, analysis and engineering that covers a very necessary skill that directly affects everyone who seeks and finds shelter, a place to work or any aspect of public works and many
Green buildings need an approach including consideration towards health and wellbeing of the occupants in every aspects of the build projects, not only for the individual apartment unit but for the entire building, based on a wider context about the environment and the community around. This matter can be a huge approach which need an integrated thinking for the architects, designers, developers and government who is responsible in the community planning (Plass N 2007). Even though we are still in early stage, building a sustainable building nowadays is an establish concept with increasing rate of demand in most countries where it is supported by government in Europe, America, China, Hong Kong, Japan, and Korea. These government have been promoted by their respective Green Building Councils. In a rate where ages is threatened by the climate nowadays, there is an increasing demand for energy and resource efficient building, but there is also a need to build a healthy and comfortable homes that is not affected by undue emissions of harmful substances (Yu CWF 2010), glare (PR 2010) or insufficient lighting (Lim HS 2010), noise (Han MH 2010), hot and cold climate (Daghigh R 2009), where occupants can actually feel safe, can interact with each other freely and can build hope for our future. For commercial buildings, there are reports of evidence about the environmentally certified buildings are raising in the aspects of personal control, day lighting, thermal comfort, air quality and noise reduction which can increase the productivity of individuals in order for them to do work or business operation (Lee YS 20...
Also, the public members are supposed to be actively involved in the EIA process so as to ensure that a cost effective method in conducting the EIA is chosen. Overall, the applications and importance of the Environmental Impact Assessment for public projects is enormous; thus, requires a collective approach and participation of the public members and various authorities in ensuring that any project becomes environmentally sustainable.
A report on “engineering for sustainable development: Guiding principles” which was written by the Royal academy of engineering in the United Kingdom describes three types of concerns faced by the civil engineers as the sustainable development in civil engineering progresses. They