Throughout the construction industry, there is a movement toward sustainability that is affecting what and how we build, and a central part of this movement is the use of low-carbon materials. Although all materials are subject to scrutiny, concrete has received specific attention, and rightfully so, concrete is the most widely used material in the world. On a unit mass basis, concrete has one of the lowest carbon footprints of all manufactured materials.
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Author Archives : Donald Davies, P.E., S.E.
A New Benchmark for Reducing High-Rise Construction Costs and Carbon Footprints
How do you successfully design and construct a high-rise residential tower, being mindful of costs while also reducing its environmental impacts? This was a challenge posed to the design team, contractor, and subcontractors behind Brookfield Properties’ 960 W 7th Street project in downtown Los Angeles, California.
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Why Now and How Do You Use It?
The building and construction sectors play a vital role in minimizing our future carbon footprint. Each year, the built environment contributes almost 40% of global greenhouse (GHG) emissions. The industry’s focus on operational carbon reductions – the energy used to heat, cool, and power our buildings – has led to many successes. However, the attention to embodied carbon, the emissions associated with material production and construction processes, has been lagging. …
Challenges and Opportunities for Structural Engineers
Architecture 2030 (architecture2030.org) reports that, between now and 2060, growth in the world’s population will require a doubling in the amount of building floor-space, equivalent to building an entire New York City every month for 40 years. Much of the carbon footprint of these new buildings will take the form of embodied carbon – the carbon emissions associated with building construction, including extracting, transporting, and manufacturing materials. As a result, owners, designers, engineers, and contractors are turning their attention to building materials and seeking information on these products so they can make more environmentally informed and smarter choices. …
Today, structural engineers are aggressively seeking low-carbon building materials to reduce the carbon footprint of the built environment. Numerous advances in concrete technology are providing solutions in response to these goals and working toward an aspiration of net-zero carbon emissions for future new construction. Even though decades of work have been performed using advances that can move the industry in that direction, they have not always made their way effectively into project specifications. The 2014 update to ACI 318, Building Code Requirements for Structural Concrete and Commentary, moved toward performance-based concrete specifications, which has facilitated the ability to use some of these advances. …
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