Energy Efficient Sustainable Building Materials: An Overview

Abstract

With the rapid development and modernisation, cities are growing at a very fast pace and the buildings are the main component of cities. Building construction in the world annually consumes around 25% of the global wood harvest, 40% of stone, sand and gravel and 16% of water. It generates 50% of global output of GHG and agents of acid rains. The manufacturing process of building material contributes to Green House Gases such as CO2 to the atmosphere to a great extent. The natural disasters like global warming, ozone layer depletion, unexpected seasonal variations and decreasing land surface have now moved the centre of attraction from development to sustainable development. Since we have limited resources and energy, our development should focus on conserving the energy. Due to the continuous exploitation of natural resources, there is an urge to produce environmentally responsive building material for the construction of new buildings to meet the rapid urban growth. Sustainable buildings are designed, constructed, maintained, rehabilitated, and demolished with an emphasis throughout their life cycle on using natural resources efficiently while also protecting global ecosystems. Selection of appropriate building material helps to use the energy efficiently. In the rapidly changing scenario of building sector, planners, architects, engineers and builders are looking for new materials and technologies to adopt in future constructions that benefits like energy efficiency, resources and water conservation, improved indoor air quality, life cycle cost reduction and durability. This paper presents a brief study of sustainable aspects of building materials and a tool for Life Cycle Assessment criteria that helps in selecting proper building materials.