In recent years there has been a move to construct more sustainable buildings with an emphasis on reducing their environmental impact, write NUI Galway`s Dr Conan O`Ceallaigh, Dr David Gil-Moreno and Prof Annette Harte.

Construction and buildings are responsible for about 39 per cent of all global carbon emissions with about 28 per cent being attributed to operational costs of the building and 11 per cent attributed to the embodied carbon of the construction materials and processes. Reducing the impact of construction is essential if we wish to transition to a carbon neutral economy while also accommodating an extra one million people in Ireland, as projected by Project Ireland 2040.

Recent policy updates will ensure that all new buildings in the EU will have significantly lower operation impacts. The current significant challenge is to address the embodied carbon emissions of construction products used in our buildings.

This has resulted in significant innovation within the construction industry in areas such as product development, lean construction processes and so on.


Source: www.engineersjournal.ie