How to Mitigate The Negative Effects of Construction Industry

Construction industry affects the environment in all stages; from mining processes used for materials, to the waste produced by the project and how it is disposed of. Furthermore, initial site development activities, all the way through the construction period, then during facility utilization period till demolition when a building service life is ended all affect our environment. Although the construction period is comparatively shorter in comparing to other stages, it has the most considerable impacts on the environment. How to Mitigate The Negative Effects of the Construction Industry?

Negative Effects of Construction

Many possible impacts of construction activities on the environment were identified through different studies. In one particular study, participants were asked to identify the most important environmental impacts.

According to the results, participants agreed that resource consumption ranked highest among the major impacts of construction activities on the environment. The resource consumption reflects raw materials consumption, electricity consumption, water consumption, and fuel consumption. Biodiversity impact ranked second followed by impacts related to localities and neighborhoods. The study recommends that construction industry stakeholders should initiate special legislation, codes or standards promoting sustainable construction practices and ensure proper and effective implementation.

One of the most discussed topics today is environmental deterioration. The rise in population and the need for expansion of the built environment have resulted in ozone layer diminution, global warming, resource depletion, and ecosystem devastation. Since construction industry activities significantly impact the environment this industry has drawn much attention.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the construction industry will “significantly change the surface of a land” as a result of the “clearing of vegetation and excavating” costumery to most construction projects. EPA adds this will result in heavy pollution of neighboring land.

Building material, such as concrete, aluminum, and steel, are directly responsible for “large quantities of CO2 emissions” because of high contents of “embodied energy content”, with 9.8 million tons of CO2 generated from the production of “76 million tons of finished concrete in the US.” The construction sector’s current practices at reducing pollutants, or omissions, are massively ineffective and may even “generate high levels of greenhouse gas pollution.” Worryingly enough, construction activities consume “half of all the resources” extracted from nature, and account for one-sixth of global freshwater consumption, one-quarter of wood consumption, and one-quarter of global waste,” according to the report.

These facts lead companies to adopt more and more process using environmentally friendly materials during the construction process that can save 250 metric tons of CO2 emissions annually, according to environmental group LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design).

InnoDez is strongly committed to environmentally friendly practices through all stages of design; from initial conceptual design to detailed architectural design up to structural calculation and Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing (MEP) design and analysis.

Recently we designed a 2 story SFR building design with a new innovative trending environmental-friendly building material based on “GigaCrete” technology. The client with especial interest in environmental conservation and utilizing new technologies reached out to InnoDez with a project for 2-story SFR to be constructed with GigaCrete.

InnoDez was tasked to prepare a plan set for a 2-story house utilizing GigaCrete, the environmental-friendly technology. To fulfill the task InnoDez engineering team had to familiarize with technical specifications and benefits of GigaCrete to optimize the final design per the all local codes and client request and requirement.

InnoDez completed Architectural, structural analysis and design calculations for this project. The main challenge encountered in this project was all the innovative technology that had to be diligently examined to be fully in compliance with the current codes and standards.

InnoDez completed Architectural, structural analysis and design calculations for this project. The main challenge encountered in this project was all the innovative technology that had to be diligently examined to be fully in compliance with the current codes and standards.

Mitigating The Negative Effects of Construction: At InnoDez we are geared out to utilize new environmental-friendly construction practices and as part of our community engagement policies and commitment to sustainable construction practices.