GREEN BULINDING PROJECT
GREEN BUILDING
DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING
ABSTRACT
This thesis studied the definition
of a green building and the elements associated with the construction of green
building. There are many rating systems available across the Country both
private and public. The most well known is the LEED rating system developed by
the United States Green Building Council. LEED has several rating programs now
available. The eight elements of LEED for Homes are used as the basis of the
research to create commonality throughout the documentation.
Determine the aspects within each of the eight elements that
define the project based on the definition of green. The elements include
innovation and design, location and linkages, sustainable sites, water
efficiency, energy and atmosphere, material and resources, indoor environmental
quality and awareness and education. The more significant focus in the
construction projects examined is on water use and energy. This is not a
surprising outcome considering the cost and availability of energy and water
supplies.
Perhaps there are
two significant main points that the research has provided, first the education
of the general public about sustainability and its impact on a global scale.
The second point from the research is the need for a holistic approach to
building a green structure. A holistic approach includes the design,
construction and operation of the building. Often times green features are an
afterthought, resulting in the green aspects not being as effective.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I sincerely express my
deep sense of indebtedness and gratitude to Prof. Pinaki Prassana Nayak for
providing me an opportunity to work under her supervision and guidance. Her continuous
encouragement, invaluable guidance and immense help have inspired me for the
successful completion of the thesis work. I sincerely thank them for their
intellectual support and creative criticism, which led me to generate my own
ideas and made my work interesting as far as possible.
I would also like to
express my sincere thanks to Prof. Satya Prakash, Head, Civil
Engineering Department,
Prof. Meenu Kalra and Dr. Gaurav Saini in providing me with all sorts of help
and paving me with their precious comments and ideas. I am indebted to all of
them.
I am also thankful to
staff members and students associated with the assistance and cooperation
during the entire course of the experimentation and helping me in all possible
ways.
I am thankful to my
parents and my in-laws for their emotional support and being patient during the
completion of my dissertation. Last but not the least; I thank the ALMIGHTY for
blessing me and supporting me throughout.
CNI GROUPS
LIST OF
TABLES
Sr. No. Details Page No.
Table
1 LEED criteria pertaining to
building products 5
Table
2 Environmental Impacts of Construction
Process Stages 8
Table
3 Triple bottom line goals for a
green building 9
Table
4 Cost influences for a green
building projects 10
LIST OF
FIGURES
Sr. No. Details
Page No.
Figure
1 Residential electricity loads in
comparison 5
With that of industry
Figure
2 Energy sold by purpose of usage in
2010/11 7
Vs. 2011/12
Figure
3 The environmental impact &
energy consumption 8
Of green construction
Figure
4 Cost of certified vs. non-certified
buildings 10
Figure
5 Relationship between green,
sustainability, 11
Ecology and performance
Figure
6 Green buildings rating systems 18
CONTENTS
1. ABSTRACT
i
2. CERTIFICATE
ii
3. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
iii
4. LIST
OF TABLES iv
5. LIST
OF FIGURES
v
6. LIST
OF ABBREVIATIONS vi
7. MAIN
TEXT
vii
a) CHAPTER
1 : INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 GENERAL
2
1.2 PARAMETERS
3
1.3 IMPORTANCE OF GOING “GREEN” 4
1.4 COST OF GOING “GREEN” 10
b)
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
14
2.1 LIST
OF RATING SYSTEMS
15
c)
CHAPTER 3: PROBLEMS STATEMENT
21
d)
CHAPTER 4: METHODOLOGY ADOPTED
27
e) CHAPTER 5: RESULTS
8. CONCLUSION
9.
SCOPE FOR FUTURE WORK
10.
REFERENCES
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1
GENERAL
Green building design is a practical and climate
conscious approach to building design. Various factors, like geographical
location, prevailing climatic conditions, use of locally available and low
embodied energy materials and design parameters relevant to the type of usage
of the building are normally taken into consideration. Such an approach ensures
minimum harm to the environment, while constructing and using the building.
A look at traditional building techniques
clearly shows that the concept of green or sustainable buildings has existed in
our country for a long time. These buildings were generally made of locally
available materials like wood, mud and stone and dealt with the vagaries of
weather without using a large amount of external energy to keep the inhabitants
comfortable.
Buildings are among the greatest consumers of
energy. Combining cutting edge energy efficient technologies with adaptation of
practices used in vernacular architecture which used more of locally available
materials and resources is necessary, especially for countries like India where
per capita energy consumption is rising rapidly due to high economic growth.
This will reduce our dependence on the fossil fuels which have to be imported
and are depleting at an alarming rate.
A green building uses minimum amount of energy,
consumes less water, conserves natural resources, generates less waste and
creates space for healthy and comfortable living.
When a number of green buildings are located in
proximity, they would create a green zone, providing much healthier environment
and minimize heat-island effect. The ultimate aim will then be to create many
such areas, which would help the towns and cities and therefore the nation in
reducing total energy requirement and also the overall global carbon footprint.
Introduction
1.2
PARAMETERS
The measures that need to be taken to make a
green building can be distributed over three different phases of construction.
These are:
i)
Measures taken before
construction
Site selection
Soil and landscape
conservation
Health and well being
Conservation and efficient utilization
of energy and resources
Waste management.
ii)
Measures taken during
construction
Soil and landscape
conservation
Conservation and efficient utilization
of energy and resources
Waste management
Health and well-being
iii)
Measures taken to
maintain the building during operation. However, there are some genuine
overlaps between steps taken before and during construction.
1.3
IMPORTANCE
OF GOING “GREEN”
Buildings
have a huge impact on the environment as they use materials that are extracted
from nature, and then transported for long distances consuming the available
roads. Later during construction, workers work in a very polluted and noisy
environment affecting neighboring citizens. Building users use up water and
energy producing waste water, solid waste, Carbon and Radon. In the end of the
building lifetime it is demolished generating demolition waste.
Some of the current environmental
issues in India are:
“Agricultural land being lost to urbanization and
windblown sands; increasing soil salination; desertification; oil pollution
threatening coral reefs, beaches, and marine habitats; other water pollution
from agricultural pesticides, raw sewage, and industrial effluents; limited
natural freshwater resources away from the Ganga, which is the only perennial
water source; rapid growth in population overstraining the Ganga and natural
resources”
Nearly
40% of the energy usage in India is residential which exceeds the 35% total
consumption of energy by industry (Indian Electricity Holding
Company, 2013) .
Two factors caused the substantial increase in residential electricity loads
compared to that of industry during year 2008/2009. Those factors are the
international financial crises that affected industrial demand in addition to
the extensive use of domestic appliances especially air conditioning in houses.
This is shown in figure 1 and figure 2.
Each
stage of the construction process has a different effect on the environment.
This is shown in Table 1 and figure 3. It can be observed from table 1 that one
of the most dominant impacts of construction stages on the environment is
energy consumption as well as CO2 emission. In figure 3, energy
consumption levels in different construction stages are compared to the general
environmental impact of these stages.
As
observed from figure 3, it can be noticed that the most environmental impact
from a construction is at the life cycle stage. The energy consumption is lower
than the environmental impact in almost all the stages as the former is only
part of the later. The energy consumption is noticed to be slightly higher
during the transportation and distribution stage due to the use of petrol
operated vehicles.
Figure 1 – Residential electricity loads
in comparison with that of industry (Indian Electricity Holding Company, 2013)
Table 1: LEED Criteria pertaining to
Building Products
|
Category
|
Objective
|
Criteria
|
|
MR3 –
Reused
materials
|
To
reduce the “impacts resulting from extraction and processing of virgin
materials”
|
5% (1
point) or 10% (2 points) of total value, by cost, of materials in the project
are
salvaged, refurbished, or reused.
|
|
MR4 –
Recycled
material
|
To
reduce the “impacts resulting from extraction and processing of virgin
materials.”
|
The
sum of post‐consumer recycled materials plus one‐half of the pre‐consumer
recycled materials constitutes at least 10% (1 point) or 20% (2 points) of
the total value, by cost, of the materials in the project.
|
|
MR5 –
Regional
materials
|
To
support “the use of indigenous resources and reduce the environmental impacts resulting
from transportation
|
10%
(1 point) or 20% (2 points) of total value, by cost, of building materials
are extracted, harvested, and manufactured within 800
kilometers of the building site.
|
Introduction
Figure 2 - Energy sold by Purpose of usage in 2010/2011 versus
2011/2012 (Indian Electricity
Holding Company, 2013)
|
Activity
|
Environmental impacts
|
|
Mining/Drilling/Extracting
|
·
Deforestation
·
Destruction of plant and animal
habitat
·
Existing settlements
·
Land erosion
·
Water pollution
|
|
Manufacturing/Assembly
|
·
Energy consumption (impacts of
producing energy)
·
Waste generation
|
|
Transportation/Distribution
|
·
Energy consumption
·
CO2 emission
·
Resource use (packaging)
|
|
Building
|
·
CO2 emission
·
Pollution and radiation from the
materials and technologies (exposed to chemical and climatic activities)
·
Pressure and damage
|
|
Maintenance/Life cycle
|
·
Energy consumption
·
CO2 emission
·
Resource use and replacement
·
Wear and tear
·
Chemical contamination (material
loss- from roofs, pipes)
·
Water pollution
|
|
Demolition
|
·
Chemical contamination
·
Toxicity
·
Environmental poisons
|
|
Recycle/waste
|
·
Landfill decomposition
·
Groundwater contamination
·
Methane gas production
|
Introduction
1.4 COST OF GOING “GREEN”
In
table 2, the goals and benefits of green construction is discussed from the planet’s
(environmental), profit (economic), and social point of view with the possible
constrains faced by each party.
One constrain that faces green construction, is the
common perception that green buildings cost more. This is not true as shown in
figure 4. It demonstrates a study on the prices of certified versus non
certified library buildings in the USA – being certified means a building is
green while non-certified doesn’t necessarily mean the opposite but getting a
certification for a green building costs minimally extra money in exchange of
the label.
In Table 3, the main influence of cost for green
building projects in the case of LEED certification is shown with their
corresponding possible cost increases.
|
Planet/Environmental
|
Profit/Economic
|
People/Social
|
|
Goals to strive for
|
||
|
Reduce energy
consumption 50%
|
Reduce energy
costs 50%
|
Be a good
corporate citizen
|
|
Reduce
greenhouse gas emissions 50%
|
Reduce water
costs 50%
|
Provide a
healthy work environment
|
|
Reduce water
usage 50%
|
Reduce
maintenance costs
|
Reduce
greenhouse gas emissions
|
|
Reduce waste
produced during construction and during operations
|
Increase
productivity
|
Maximize
utilization of resources
|
|
Protect
biodiversity
|
Reduce risk of
sick building-related issues
|
Reduce overall
carbon footprint
|
|
Constraints
|
||
|
Site is already
selected
|
Owners payback
targets are <10 years
|
Limited
experience internal to owners’ team
|
Introduction
|
Cost
influencer
|
Possible cost
increases
|
|
1. Level
of LEED certification sought
|
Zero for LEED-certified to 1-2 % for LEED Silver, up
to 4% for LEED Gold
|
|
2. Stage
of the project when the decision is made to seek LEED certification
|
After 50% completion of design development, things
get more costly to change
|
|
3. Project
type
|
With certain project types, such as science and
technology labs, it can be costly to change established design approaches;
designs for office buildings are easier to change
|
|
4. Experience
of the design and construction teams in sustainable design and green
buildings
|
Every organization has a “learning curve” for green
buildings; costs decrease as teams learn more about the process
|
|
5. Specific
“green” technologies added to a project without full integration with other
components
|
Photovoltaic and green roofs are going to add costs,
no matter what; it’s possible to design a LEED Gold building without them
|
|
6. Lack
of clear priorities for green measures and lack of a strategy for including
them
|
Each design team member considers strategies in
isolation, in the absence of clear direction from the owner, resulting in
higher costs overall and less systems integration
|
|
7. Geographic
location and climate
|
Climate can make certain levels of LEED
certification harder and costlier for project types such as labs and even
office buildings.
|
The
relationship between sustainability and green has shown below in figure 5. In Figure 5 sustainability is used to describe
technologically, materially, ecologically, and environmentally stable building
design mainly from the economical point of view. On the other hand green is
viewed as an abstract concept that includes sustainability ecology and
performance. Ecology in this case is concerned with the relation and balance of
the building with the nature.
According to this concept a building can be sustainable (stable) with
low performance or bad impact on the environment making it non green. The same
goes with good performance with no ecology or stability…etc.
…
…
RATING SYSTEMS ON THE MARKET
2.1
LIST OF RATING SYSTEMS
In
1981, the Canadian Home Builders' association (CHBA) and the Office of Energy
Efficiency (OEE) of Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) developed the R-2000 in
Canada (R-2000)
In
1990, the BRE (Building Research Establishment) developed BREEAM in the UK ((BRE: Home)
and (BREEAM: BRE environmental
assessment method) ). It checks wide-ranging environmental and sustainability
issues by providing building performance evaluations in eight distinct
categories.
In
1996, the Green Building Challenge (GBC) developed the SBTOOL in Canada (Greenman Sustainable Buildings - Green Building, Consulting, Education
and Sales in Canada and USA) . This system is
designed as a generic toolbox, which can be customized according to local and
regional building performance requirements and needs. SBTool uses a scoring
system based on scale of -1 (deficient), 0 (minimum pass), +3 (good practice),
and +5 (best practice).
In
1998, the US Green Building Council (USGBC) developed LEED in the USA (USGBC: LEED ) . It provides a
rating framework for developing and evaluating high-performance green
buildings. The system primarily measures six categories such as sustainable
site development, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and
resources, indoor environmental quality and innovation and design process.
LEED
uses a 69-point scale system with four ratings: Platinum (52-69 points), gold
(39-51 points), silver (33-38 points), and certified (26-32 points).
In
1999, the Collaborative for High Performance Schools developed the CHPS in the
USA (CHPS.net) . It facilitates
the design, construction, and operation of high-performance school buildings
and environments. CHPS's main criterion is to create sustainable school
environments, which are not only energy- and resource-efficient but also
healthy, habitable, and comfortable.
In
2000, GREEN GLOBES was developed [in the USA: Green Building Initiative (GBI)
(2005), in Canada: ECD Energy and Environment Canada and BOMA Canada under the
brand name "Go Green" (Go Green Plus) (2004)] (Building environmental assessments - welcome) .
Literature Review
In
2002, the Business Environment Council (BEC), and HK-Beam Society developed
BEAM in Hong Kong (HK BEAM Society ) . It evaluates
and measures the environmental performance of buildings in Hong Kong. The
evaluation is based on five building performance criteria:
Hygiene, health, comfort, and amenity
Land use, site impact, and transportation
Use of materials, recycling, and waste management
Water quality, conservation, and recycling
Energy
efficiency, conservation, and management.
BEAM
uses an overall assessment rating system based on gained credit percentage
scale. Accordingly, BEAM awards four rating classifications: platinum
(excellent, 75%), gold (very good, 65%), silver (good, 55%), and bronze (above
average, 40%).
In
2003, the American Society for Healthcare Engineering (ASHE) developed GGHC in
the USA (GGHC - home) . GGHC is the
healthcare sector's first quantifiable, sustainable design evaluation tool. It
integrates environmental and health principles and practices into the planning,
design, construction operations, and maintenance of healthcare facilities. In
addition to specialized guidelines and evaluation procedures, GGHC uses the
LEED system as their existing building-rating mechanism.
It
was developed in Australia. It was developed by the Green Building Council of
Australia, Green Star New Zealand, and Green Star South Africa. It is a
comprehensive, national, voluntary rating system that evaluates a building's
environmental design and performance. Green Star is modeled after BREAM; it
uses a customizable rating tool kit that can be modified for different building
types and functions. Green Star ratings are based on a percentage score across
nine performance categories:
Management
Indoor environment
Energy
Transportation
Water
Materials, Land use and ecology
Emissions and innovation.
Literature Review
In
2004, the Japan Green-Build Council (JaGBC) and the Japan Sustainable Building
Consortium (JSBC) developed CASBEE in Japan. CASBEE measures the sustainability
and environmental efficiency of high-performance buildings (CASBEE) . Green building
issues and problems that are unique to Japan and Asia are especially taken into
consideration.
CASBEE
has four grading categories (pre-design, new construction, existing buildings,
and renovations), which are evaluated based on four criteria : Energy, Site,
Indoor environmental quality and Resources, materials and water conservation.
An
overall evaluation rating is determined based on numerous calculations, and the
results are presented in a letter scale of S (excellent), A, B+, B-, and C
(poor).
In
2004, It was developed by the ASSOHQE (Association pour la Haute Qualite'
Environnemnentale) in France (Association HQE) . HQE evaluates
the environmental impact of buildings, focusing on the following criteria:
Design, Construction, Energy and Water, waste and maintenance.
In
2005, the NAHB (National Association of home
builders) developed the NGBS in the USA
(NAHBGreen) . It provides
guidelines for the mainstream homebuilder to incorporate environmental concerns
into a new home. Divided into two parts, the system covers seven evaluation
criteria:
Lot design
Resource efficiency
Energy efficiency
Water efficiency
Indoor environmental quality
Homeowner education
Global impact.
In
2005, the NSW (New South Wales Government), Department of Environmental and
Climate Change, Australia developed the NABERS in Australia which measures
existing buildings’ performance during their life cycles (NABERS - home page) . There are
separate ratings for: office buildings, office occupants, hotels, and homes.
Final ratings are based on measured operational impacts of four evaluation
criteria: Energy, Water, Waste management and Indoor quality.
Literature Review
In
2005, the TERI (Energy and Resources Institute) developed GRIHA, which measures
the environmental performance of buildings, focusing on India’s varied climate
and building practices (TERI - The Energy and Resources Institute ) in India. The
rating is based on quantitative and qualitative assessment techniques, and is
applicable to new and existing buildings (commercial, institutional, and
residential). The evaluation criteria are:
Site planning
Building envelope design
Building system design
HVAC
Lighting and electrical
Integration of renewable energy sources to generate energy onsite
Water and waste management
Selection of ecologically sustainable materials
Indoor environmental quality.
In
2005, the Singapore Building and Construction Authority and the National
Environment agency developed the BCA Green Mark in Singapore, which is a green
building rating system that evaluates a building for its environmental impact
and performance (BCA green mark) .
It
provides a comprehensive framework for assessing building performance and
environmental friendliness. Buildings are awarded the BCA Green Mark based on
five key criteria:
Energy efficiency
Water efficiency
Site/project development and management (building
management and operation for existing buildings)
Indoor environmental quality and environmental
protection
Innovation.
In
2006, the ministry of construction and the ministry of housing and urban rural
development developed the THREE STAR as China’s first building rating system (Geoff, 2009) and (Ministry of construction - china.org.cn) in China. It is
designed to create local building standards. It is a
Literature Review
credit-based
system with two standards-residential and commercial. The system evaluates the
building in six categories:
Land savings and outdoor improvement
Energy saving
Water savings
Material savings
Indoor environmental quality
Operations and management.
In
2006, the Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST) developed the GBAS in
China, which is developed from China’s Green Olympic Building Assessment System
(GOBAS,2006), and measures basic environmental performance of buildings such
as: electricity, water, and energy consumption.
In 2009, the German Sustainable Building
Council (DGNB) developed the GSBC in Germany (DNGB german green building council) . It is a
comprehensive rating system, which covers all relevant topics of sustainable
building and construction. It was developed as a tool for the planning and
evaluation of buildings, using six categories with 49 criteria:
Ecological quality
Economical quality
Socio-cultural and functional quality
Technical quality
Quality of the processes
Site
GSBC
uses a number-based system, in which each category has an equal percentage
weight. Three evaluation degrees are offered: Gold (89%), Silver (69%), and
Bronze (50%).
In
2009, the Jordan green building council decided to use the LEED V3 for rating
green buildings in Jordan (The future home of jordan green
building council ) .
In
2010, the LGBC (Lebanon Green Building Council) developed the Thermal Standard
for Buildings in Lebanon (LGBC, 2010) .
Literature Review
CHAPTER
3
PROBLEM STATEMENT
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Materials are
the stuff of economic life in our industrial world. They include the resource
inputs and the product outputs of industrial production. How we handle them is a
major determinant of true economic efficiency, real prosperity, social justice,
our personal health, and the health of the natural environment. Materials are,
moreover, far more than resources or products. They are gifts of nature. How we
relate to materials—in their production and their consumption—is one of the
best barometers of our fundamental relationship to that which gives us life.
Not coincidentally, it reflects our relationship to ourselves, our creativity,
our work and possibilities for self-actualization and community development—a
theme I will emphasize throughout this thesis.
This
dissertation is about building materials: about how we use them now, how they
might be used more appropriately, and the process of getting from here to
there. Our current use of materials is running down natural systems, destroying
community, debasing work, and suppressing all kinds of possibilities for real
development. To remedy this, we need to conserve materials, reduce their
unnecessary use, produce them more benignly, make them last longer, and recycle
and reuse them. We also need to develop community consumer initiatives and
regulatory processes to support these reforms. Therefore I have organized this
work in chapters to separately deal with evaluation, production, consumption,
recycling and regulation of building materials with the intention of clarifying
the relationship between these realms, and therefore contributing to possible
economic conversion strategies linking these areas. The role of information and
education will be highlighted as a crucial connecting thread.
Building is a
pivotal sector. It is responsible for a vast quantity of the industrial economy’s
material throughput—around 40 percent. Asian buildings absorb about 65 percent
of the continent’s electricity and generate about 30 percent of greenhouse gas
emissions (Asian Department of Energy--Energy Information Administration, 2012).
60 percent of the zone-depleting substances used in the continent come from
building construction and systems.
Building
materials, therefore, are important because of the immense social and environmental
impact of extracting, processing and maintaining them. But buildings are also
our personal environments, products in which we are constantly immersed. As Churchill
said, “we shape our buildings and our buildings shape us.” Building materials surround
us, and (unfortunately) are literally part of the air we breathe. Compared to most
other materials in our world, they are also much longer lived, with a much
longer use phase. The industry is not centralized in one place but exists in
virtually every community. It is a “service” industry but is also a major user
and generator of material resources, and has important connections with
manufacturing and other industries. Our relationship to building materials is
thus a major influence on our economy, the natural world, and our personal and
spiritual well-being. It is not possible in this thesis to deal properly with
the many questions of urban design, that are essential to positive ecological
relationships. Questions of spatial design are absolutely central to green
alternatives, and they will be touched in at various points in this thesis. But
I also want to put some focus on product
Problem Statement
and economic system
design to create a larger synthesis which both clarifies the situation of the
building industry today and some fruitful priorities for making positive
change.
This
dissertation is, however, not simply about building materials. I am perhaps equally
interested in what the building industry can tell us about a potential green economy,
as in what green economic analysis can tell us about building and building materials.
So this look at building materials serves as a kind of case study of post industrial
economic development. Until recently the focus of the green building movement
has been much more on energy than on materials. The same can also be said for
the environmental movement generally. Energy is a justifiable concern, but a
narrow energy focus sometimes runs the risk of preoccupation with
efficiency—avoiding consideration of the purpose of what we are doing
economically. Materials are energy, but embodied energy—energy bound up with
and expressive of human purpose. They are more transparently reflective of the
end-uses of the economy—and end-use is a crucial starting point for ecological
design.
The building industry,
especially which related to materials, is expressive of important trends in
green economic development. The role of information and knowledge, the appropriate
forms of production and recycling, and even emerging forms of
civil-society-based regulation are graphically manifest in building, and often substantially
more advanced than in other sectors of the economy. Most generally and importantly,
questions of design are keys to postindustrial economic transformation, and many
key design relationships are often dramatically expressed in the
built-environment and the building industry.
Throughout this
work, I will be concerned equally with the amount and the composition of
materials. We are currently using too many of the earth’s resources and we are
using them to produce too many toxic substances. In particular, there are new synthetic
toxins and classes of materials (e.g. organochlorines) that are intrinsically destructive
to human beings and ecosystems which cannot break down these persistent and
accumulative substances. A green vision, therefore, geared to transforming both
the quantity and quality of materials, involves the twin tasks of
dematerializing and detoxifying the economy. We must do more with much less,
and produce much safer environmentally-benign materials. The key principles of
green economic design, dealt with in my earlier book and summarized here, will
be invoked to show how this dematerialization and detoxification actually takes
place for different circumstances, sectors, and materials.
Essential to a
transformation of materials use is a radical redefinition of economic development.
Even a superficial assessment of materials-use signals real danger and the need
to reassess long-held notions of progress and growth. Open-ended economic growth
has always been held to be an unqualified good, providing the possibility of higher
living standards for all without having to redistribute wealth and power. But
the finiteness of the biosphere has begun to dramatize the inherent limits of
material accumulation. Early (1970s) environmental concerns focused on the
exhaustion of nonrenewable resources, but more recently experts and activists
have realized that the more serious problem is the effect of economic growth on
natural processes that until now have been renewable and self-regulating.
Problem Statement
Over the last 50
years, industrial development has seriously degraded one-third of the planet’s
arable lands, while eliminating one-third of tropical forests, one-quarter of available
fresh water, one-quarter of fish reserves, and innumerable species of plants
and animals vital to ecological stability. Another crucial impact, climate
change, threatens to take on a life of its own and accelerate all the
aforementioned negative impacts. And, on top of this, new kinds of persistent
accumulative toxins further undermine human and environmental health
.
This
environmental crisis has, of course, major implications for social development.
My angle on this is to focus on the role of our very structure of resource use
and materials production. In underdeveloped and impoverished countries, where most
people do not have their most basic needs met, it is not possible to assume
that conventional resource-intensive market-driven economic growth is the
answer. These countries need more direct (as opposed to trickle-down)
solutions, and ones that employ and engage people, not displace them. And they
need work that helps them restore ecosystems often degraded by their countries’
status as resource-extraction or cheap labour zones for the industrialized
countries. Throwing one’s lot in with the global economy stands to be a risky
game, since all indications are that the polarization of rich and poor is
intensifying with globalization.
Certainly
markets need to recognize previously unvalued services, both human and
ecological, but translating all value into monetary value is not the answer. We
need ways—like indicators—to let social and ecological values speak for
themselves, and we need to find other forms of support and recognition for
regenerative services that do not corrupt their qualitative goals. In fact, sustainability
may require that markets themselves be subordinated to larger values than
profit and
accumulation.
This means not
just imposing protectionist limits on industrial growth. Limiting development
is not the answer, but rather redefining it: from a narrow focus on production
and accumulation to a direct focus on people’s needs, on service, and on regenerating
natural systems. It is a movement from quantity to quality. This has tremendous
relevance to underdeveloped countries and international development, and for
women, who have long been “specialists” in non-material development. It also
has great relevance for the labour movements in the developed countries who are
finding that the “social contracts” attained after WWII are under attack as the
costs of materials intensive development are coming due. Full employment is no
longer the priority it once was in the rich countries, and as knowledge-based
jobs are concentrated into narrow
Problem Statement
bands of the
workforce, the vast numbers of new jobs are deskilled. This is not the kind of
service work that green economists advocate. But people intensive ecological
work is precisely what could build a new kind of progressive union power.
This
dissertation cannot hope to properly treat the implications of dematerialization
and green development for the labour movement, for women’s equality, or for
global poverty and international development. But it is important to recognize
that there is a close relationship between social and ecological exploitation,
and social and ecological development. Understanding the industrial economy’s
relationship to materials and resources can make a great contribution to
understanding the status of women, of workers and of the Global South in social
change today. While this thesis cannot hope to explore all these things, I
believe my treatment of green economic potentials can be useful to those who
wish to do so.
Although the
primary focus of popular environmental awareness—and green building—has been on
energy, it is our relationship to materials that will probably have the most
significance for green economic transformation and the establishment of sustainable
societies. Cutting-edge thinking on green economics has accurately identified industrialism
with material accumulation, and post industrialism with what has been called
dematerialization of the economy. Green thinkers recognize that the growing importance
of knowledge, information and culture should make it possible to displace materials
and energy from production with human intelligence and ingenuity. This would
allow us to satisfy more basic human needs with far fewer resources. It would also allow us to fit human economic activities
within natural processes without disrupting them. But all this would entail
fundamental changes in the form, content and driving forces of the economy—the
subject of Designing the Green Economy.
Part and parcel
of this dematerialization are the two other characteristics of authentic
postindustrial development: detoxification and decentralization. Detoxification
means the production and use of more benign materials—materials that are not
only healthier, but that can also be cycled and recycled in closed loops, and
eventually safely returned to nature as compost. Closed loop organization saves
resources and thus helps “dematerialize”. Decentralization is a tendency of
advanced economic development that we already see in energy technologies—for
example, the decline of the massive generation utilities like Ontario Hydro.
Decentralization is also visible in more subtle ways in manufacturing
processes; but more radical forms of it are necessary to establish tight loops
of production and consumption, to make “waste” into a resource, and to make the
most of regional materials. Decentralization is, however, also important
because new forms of qualitative wealth based on service (and on the direct
production for human need) must necessarily be community-based. Community
participation is, in a sense, a
technical
necessity for achieving new levels of eco-efficiency.
The purpose of
this study is to look at the role of building materials in an ecological
economy, and to consider the practical ways by which dematerialization might take
place—and is taking place—in the building industry. A related question is: what
Problem Statement
would a building
industry based in service—the key attribute of postindustrial green economy—look
like? This, of course, goes far beyond construction—since it has major impacts
on
manufacturing,
extractive and disposal industry—and it also requires basic changes in the
goals and driving forces of the economy. I am particularly interested in the
implications of such change for community economic development.
While my
emphasis on principles and potentials makes this is a work of theory, it is
also intended as a work of policy or economic strategy. By highlighting best
practices in key areas, I want to make it useful for builders, developers,
trades people, designers, planners, policy-makers, community economic
developers, environmentalists, ethical investors and others. I want to suggest
ways by which communities can (or are already beginning to) spawn green
industry, turn waste into wealth, generate healthy work, create markets for
eco-products, and simultaneously move to preserve or regenerate their natural environments.
CHAPTER 4
METHODOLOGY ADOPTED
METHODOLOGY ADOPTED
During the
initiation of the project, I with my group members collected the data regarding
the case studies of different Green Buildings in India (including benefits,
parameters, sites where green buildings are being constructed). We found many
such sites and visited three of them.
Then, we visited
there and requested the site staffs to provide the details and design of the
building. We collected many parameters in those buildings which were different
from a normal building.
Firstly, we
visited Jaypee Greens site at Sector- 108, Noida. There were three materials
used in the building which were different from normal building. First one was
coupler which was used at the joints to connect two steel bars. This technique
has dual benefits one is that it reduces the cost of construction by reducing
the amount of steel used in the overlapping at the joints. Another advantage of
using this technique is that it increases the strength of the joints.
The second
material which was being used in the buildings was fly ash bricks instead of
normal bricks or concrete walls. It also reduces the cost of construction as
well as it is sustainable for the environment because the raw material used for
these bricks are the waste product of thermal power plants. These bricks are
lighter than the normal bricks so easy to place during construction.
The third
technique was the use of insulated glass in place of walls. It reduces the
energy consumption for lighting during the day time. The uses of insulated
glasses allow the light to come in but avoid the heating of the inner space.
Following is the
list of buildings on which we have done the case studies:
Project
Name
Location Rating
Lotus Boulevard Sector-100, Noida Certified
CII-Sohrabji
Godrej Green Business Centre Hyderabad Platinum
Bayer
EcoCommercial Building
Greater Noida
Platinum
Greenopolis
Comments
Post a Comment