The Three Pillars of Sustainability in Construction
Sustainable building concept is described as integration of environmentally friendly systems in the construction industry with the objective to achieve energy efficiency and optimal structural performance while minimizing the negative impact of buildings to the environment. Sustainable construction is anchored on three pillars, energy efficiency, structural performance and environmental impacts (Westermann, & Evins, 2019). The concept of sustainability in construction emerged before the that of sustainable development when communities started to embrace the idea of using environmentally friendly materials in construction of building in the early 20th century. Construction industry is fundamental in the infrastructural development of towns and cities, with the rapid adoption of industrialization and urbanizations in the 19th and 20th century, resulted to an upsurge on the construction of buildings for industrial and settlement purposes (Balasubramanian, 2021).
The concept led to the introduction of green building technology that applies conscious techniques to ecological and energy conservations in the design and construction of the built environment. Primarily, the ecological designs are highly considered in green building to ensure that the present built environment make rational use of the available resources to create a conducive building space without compromising the attainment of the same experience in future (Garg et al. 2018). The concept of green building has gained momentum in construction industry in the past two decades because it creates positive impacts on natural environment and climate while preserving the natural resources and providing an improved quality of life in built environment. Sustainability in construction can be achieved through implementing design philosophy focused on enhancing the efficiency of resources like construction materials, energy and water while minimizing the building impact on environment and human health throughout building’s lifecycle (Bachrun et al. 2019).
The six key principles of sustainable building are; optimal energy use, site potential, water conservation, optimal material and building use, improve indoor environmental quality and optimize maintenance and operational practices. It demands for proper use of site whether retrofitting an existing building or producing designs for new project and these need to be done in consideration to the building’s impact on the local ecosystem, energy use and transportation systems. Building’s energy consumption has been the center of debates surround sustainable environment, with building sector reported to consume over 40% of the total global energy (Pan et al. 2018), the need to improve on energy performance in building industry is critical. Therefore, green building concept promote the use sustainable energy sources to power buildings and environmentally friendly materials in construction to achieve net zero energy in built environment. To ensure that buildings are of desirable impact on occupant comfort, health and productivity in built space, the green building advocate for optimum daylighting, sufficient natural ventilation and moisture control to improve on building’s performance and avoid the use of artificial space conditioning systems with VOC emissions.
Besides environmental sustainability, green building concept also promotes the attainment of economic sustainability in construction industry. The objective of economic sustainability is provided within sustainable construction by the reduced cost of project implementation, enhanced occupant productivity, optimize structural lifecycle economic performance, minimized operating costs and reduced expenses on service bills like electricity and water bills (Liu, et al. 2019). Construction cost a vital in achieving the economic benefits of sustainable building concept in the industry. The cost implications in building construction include the pre-design expenses, material costs, expenses of actualizing the project as well as cost incurred in operational and maintenance of the building. When the green building was introduced, many projected stalled or took more time to completion than initially scheduled due to financial challenges (Sharma, 2020). To avert cost and expense challenges in construction industry, cost modelling techniques were adopted to enhance the economic sustainability of green buildings.
The Emergence of Green Building Technology
In every stage of any building construction or development process including sustainable buildings, there exist a correlation o construction cost. Some of the incurred costs in green constructions include; preliminary costs, consultancy fees, site development expenses, planning costs, substructure & superstructure costs, electrical and mechanical services expense, fitting & finishing cost and contingency costs. Therefore, cost modelling concept was introduced in the construction industry to help developers properly and effectively plan for the financial aspects of construction, operating and maintaining buildings (Gardner et al. 2019). In sustainable construction, the theory of cost modeling presents a sustainable framework of evaluating the expenses or total value of the development. Building project is only economically sustainable when its long-term value exceeds the incurred cost of putting up the building. In green building, there are to major cost models used in cost estimation; probabilistic and deterministic models (Marzouk et al. 2019). Deterministic model assumes that the value of the building would exactly yield the predicted output as the construction only takes into consideration the known input variables, while probabilistic model applies the concept of probability to evaluate the value of a building taking into consideration the possibility of uncertainties of the some of the input variables.
Comparing the standard cost modelling and green cost modelling concepts, the whole life cost plan in buildings that include procurement cost, operational cost, refurbishment and maintenance costs are considered. Traditional or standard cost modelling tends to us the deterministic model in cost valuation of buildings where contractor would budget for the construction process without incorporating possibility of uncertainty in course of the project or throughout the lifecycle of the building (Al-Tabbaa et al. 2018). Green cost modelling is approved to be the most sustainable modelling technique conscious of economic stability in construction industry. It acknowledges that building is a dynamic process that starts from conceptual design development throughout the structure’s lifecycle. The green cost modelling utilizes the probabilistic model in evaluation the whole life cost of the building, incorporating various factors of uncertainty in overall structural valuations.
Arguably, green cost modelling is expensive during construction stages but has proved to be sustainable in the long run (whole life cost plan). For instance, cost of putting up a three-storey green building is expensive compared to the cost of constructing a building with same parameters (three storey building). The difference comes in the cost of materials, procurement processes and cost of implementing sustainable systems in buildings. Through economics and scientific research investigations, it has been proved that green costing models are effective and sustainable in terms of reduced structural operational cost, refurbishment and maintenance costs of a building in whole life cycle.
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Net Present Value Costing |
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Invariable Discount rate = 6% Economic life = 30 years |
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Building A Parameters Initial cost = $8,500,000 Repairs = $100,000 after every 8 years Maintenance = $30, 000 pa Heating & Lighting = $180, 000 p a Demolition & Disposal = $105,000 There are several approaches the computing NPV Net Present Value NPV = – Initial cost NVP = C + R – S + A + M + E Where; C – Investment/Initial cost R – Replacement/Repair cost A – Annually recuring operational/maintenance M – Non annually recuring cost E – Energy R – Resale value Now for Building A C = $8,500,000 R = $100,000 E = $180,000 M = $105,000 NPV = 8,500,000 + 300,000 + 900,000 + 540,000 + 105,000 = 15,250,000 Now applying the discount of 6% 15,250,000 x 0.06 = 14,292,700 |
Building B Parameters Initial cost = $6,500,000 Repairs = $200,000 after every 8 years Maintenance = $55, 000 pa Heating & Lighting = $270, 000 p a Demolition & Disposal = $105,000 There are several approaches the computing NPV Net Present Value NPV = – Initial cost NVP = C + R – S + A + M + E Where; C – Investment/Initial cost R – Replacement/Repair cost A – Annually recuring operational/maintenance M – Non annually recuring cost E – Energy R – Resale value Now for Building A C = $6,500,000 R = $200,000 E = $270,000 M = $105,000 NPV = 6,500,000 + 600,000 + 1,650,000 + 8,100,000 + 105,000 = 16,955,000 Now applying the discount of 6% 16,955,000x 0.06 = 15,937,700 |
From the calculated Whole life costs for the two buildings, it is highly recommended that the client considers the Building (A) Option; High initial cost for construction with low cost-in-use rather than Building (B) Option. This has been supported by the NPV analysis of the both options, and the analysis has revealed that Building A has the lower life-cycle costs. The overall cost implication in buildings extends beyond the initial incurred cost in putting up the building. The design style, materials used in the construction, replacement costs and annually compounded recurrent expenditures, and the maintenance costs determines the overall whole life cost of a building. For instance, in Building (B) Option, the cost of operating and maintaining the building for 30 years is more than the initial cost, while for Building (A) Option, the overall cost of operating and maintain the building is fairly lower compared to than of B thus the most ideal choice of construction for sustainable construction.
Key Principles of Sustainable Building
Economics of green building designs are often considered on the basis of an appreciation of all factors of situation both affecting the operational of the building like replacement costs, maintenance expenses and recurrent expenditures. Whole life costing of building takes into account initial cost as well as maintenance, operational, upgrade, repair and eventual disposal (demolition) costs hence, the long-run cost is important factor to consider while making design or construction decisions. Though many might argue that the future is uncertain, in construction for sustainability incorporate financial quantifications of factors of anticipated future. The Building (B) option is not economical in long-run despite having lower initial costs, but because the accumulative cost of operating, maintaining, upgrading and eventually disposing the building would be me more expensive compared to Building (A) option.
To have a lower life-cycle costs in buildings, it is recommended that contractors consider sustainable or green building techniques. The technology might be expensive to put up the building because of the materials, resources and skills required in the construction but the materials and building systems of sustainable buildings pay off in long-run. For instance, in sustainable building, contractor might have to use considerably more money to procure and install solar panels to support the lighting systems, heating and space conditioning but for the rest of building’s life cycle there will be recurrent expenditure in energy bills.
References
Al-Tabbaa, A., Lark, B., Paine, K., Jefferson, T., Litina, C., Gardner, D., & Embley, T. (2018). Biomimetic cementitious construction materials for next-generation infrastructure. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers-Smart Infrastructure and Construction, 171(2), 67-76.
Atamewan, E. E. Sustainable Smart Cities, Architects and Role of ICT: A Review. Utilizing Information Technology to Achieve Circular Economy and Sustainable Development, 5.
Bachrun, A. S., Ming, T. Z., & Cinthya, A. (2019). Building Envelope Component to Control Thermal Indoor Environment in Sustainable Building: A Review. Sinergi, 23(2), 79-98.
Balasubramanian, V. (2021). A study on the Green Building Concepts in Vastu Sastra principles for sustainable development. Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge (IJTK), 20(3), 866-874.
Gardner, D., Lark, R., Jefferson, T., & Davies, R. (2018). A survey on problems encountered in current concrete construction and the potential benefits of self-healing cementitious materials. Case studies in construction materials, 8, 238-247.
Garg, N., Kumar, A., Pipralia, S., & Kumar, P. (2018, May). Sustainable Building Materials for Energy Efficiency. In International Conference on Urban Sustainability: Emerging Trends, Themes, Concepts & Practices (ICUS).
Liu, Z., Jiang, L., Osmani, M., & Demian, P. (2019). Building information management (BIM) and blockchain (BC) for sustainable building design information management framework. Electronics, 8(7), 724.
Marzouk, M., Azab, S., & Metawie, M. (2018). BIM-based approach for optimizing life cycle costs of sustainable buildings. Journal of cleaner production, 188, 217-226.
Pan, M., Linner, T., Cheng, H. M., Pan, W., & Bock, T. (2018). A framework for utilizing automated and robotic construction for sustainable building. In Proceedings of the 21st International Symposium on Advancement of Construction Management and Real Estate (pp. 79-88). Springer, Singapore.
Sharma, N. K. (2020). Sustainable building material for green building construction, conservation and refurbishing. Int. J. Adv. Sci. Technol, 29, 5343-5350.
Westermann, P., & Evins, R. (2019). Surrogate modelling for sustainable building design–A review. Energy and Buildings, 198, 170-186.
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