Material-Neutral Building: Closed Cycle Accounting for Buildings Construction A new practical way to measure improvements in creating a balanced resource use for construction

Abstract

The attention paid to climate change due to energy consumption from fossil fuels leaves unaddressed other issues that might even be more threatening to global welfare. First of all we have the global depletion of fossil fuels. This, and the related economic effects, can put the world in direct disorder and leave many areas and cities without (a distribution of) resources (energy but also food). The second issue is that of materials. Many materials also face shortages or depletion and a transition to renewable source materials is just as urgently needed as are renewable energy sources. In both cases, depletion is the issue that must be tackled and which automatically will require us to develop a resource management structure that can be maintained in future. Such an approach will require the treatment of resources in a closed loop related to the time frame of use. The questions that should be addressed in this context are: How would a closed loop approach for the building sector look like? How could we ass...