Application Of Sustainable Concept Research Articles

Using Building Information & Energy Modelling for Energy Efficient Designs

The construction industry has a huge impact on the environment in terms of noise, water and land pollution, traffic congestion and waste disposal. Another aspect of the construction industry impact on the environment is the increasing energy consumption. According to published research, buildings energy use is expected to increase by 32% by the year 2040. As a result, efforts have been directed toward improving green building awareness and the application of sustainability concepts in the design, construction and building management processes. In this research, using extensive simulations, the integration between Building Information Modeling methodology (BIM) and Building Energy Modeling (BEM) methodologies in order to effectively minimize the overall energy consumption of a residential building in the UAE is investigated by studying several design factors including: building orientation and windows type, size and distribution on the overall building energy consumption. Results show that to increase the modelled building’s energy and financial efficiency, recommended changes to the initial design have to be done including changing the distribution of the southern façade and the type of windows glazing used. More specifically, there was a peak energy reduction of: 8% with a 180 degrees building orientation angle, 2% with a window to wall ratio of 15%, and 2% when double glazing windows were used. This work validates that the combination of BIM and BEM allows to enhance the overall building energy consumption efficiency and to further establish the needed sustainability goals through a generated 3D model.

Waste Management in the Reform and Adequacy of the Maracanã Stadium for the FIFA Football World Cup 2014

This work aims to contribute to the minimization of solid construction waste at construction sites through the application of sustainability concepts in the construction industry, addressing the recommendations of the LEED certification. The object of study was the works of reform and adaptation of the Maracanã Stadium, venue of the final match of the 2014 FIFA World Cup. The methodology consists of visits to the construction site of the stadium, interviews with responsible people for the jobs and data analysis collected by the Maracanã Consortium Rio 2014 Report. Based on the data collected, it was evaluated the used strategies and tools in the construction to minimize the generation of waste. It was found that the strategies were well executed, contributing to the reduction of waste at the construction site and to the sustainable disposal of the generated waste. The strategies involved environmental, social and economic aspects, giving the construction an international certification for sustainable building.

Building Sustainability Assessment throughout Multicriteria Decision Making

Opinion and choice strongly influence sustainability concepts. The building construction industry, in particular property developers, has been charged with promoting excess environmental impacts ranging from overuse of resources to pollution generation. This paper presents an application of sustainability concepts to building projects, as well as to the development of practices, methodology, and tools for evaluating existing buildings. This study will detail how current systems to evaluate building performance operate and how to improve them. This approach utilizes the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). AHP is a multicriteria method that evaluates the relative importance of criteria, subcriteria, and families of indicators, used in the proposed system of technical characteristics applied to the local culture. At the same time, AHP makes visible the critical factors involved in evaluation of sustainability of these buildings. A result of the application of this type of modeling is a system for sustainability assessment and evaluation of environmental aspects and socioeconomic perspectives of existing buildings in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Application of Bioclimatic Parameter as Sustainability Approach on Multi-story Building Design in Tropical Area

Abstract The main objective in construction of a physical facility is to provide a place for humans (bio) in order to achieve their goals. Building as built environment with a particular physical form at a particular location is affected by climate. If the building design process ignores the climate considerations, the influence of climate can lead to interference human activities. Bioclimatic design is a concept of sustainable approach that consider of climate and human relations in reviewing the feasibility of a design. At this time, a growing number of designers, especially young architects that interested in using bioclimatic concept as sustainable approach in their design process. However, the application of this concept in the design process has not shown significant results in building operation. This paper elaborates the bioclimatic concept, in order to obtain a good understanding of bioclimatic design that can be used as a reference, especially for novice designers, in the application of sustainability concepts in the design of multi-story buildings in the tropical area. This paper also suggests a design method that utilizes a sustainable approach which is expected to help novice designers in applying the bioclimatic design concept.

Sustainability in the auto repair industry: a life cycle assessment application

The growth of sustainability awareness has driven many industries to provide 'greener' products and processes and promote new approaches to improve their environmental performances. In particular, life cycle assessment (LCA) is a framework for estimating the environmental impacts of a product, a process or a service throughout its life cycle. The applications of LCA in the automotive industry have mainly focused on the technological innovation of product or manufacturing processes. Conversely, automotive companies have not concentrated their efforts on promoting sustainable actions on service activities although the application of sustainability concepts in this context should represent a new way to reach competitiveness. Purpose of this paper is to present and discuss the applicability of LCA-based methods in the automotive industry for the development of a sustainable auto repair network, in order to fulfil environmental and economical benefits. An empirical application in a body repair workshop is presented to validate the proposed methods.

Sustainability of Effluent Irrigation Schemes: Measurable Definition

Traditionally water requirements and nutrient removal capacity by plants are considered as the main design criteria of effluent irrigation schemes. Environmental impacts of schemes on surface and ground-water pollution, which may be controlling factors in some circumstances, have not been considered in the design process. In this paper the implication of the sustainability for effluent irrigation schemes has been identified through investigating the pollutant fate. An index has been developed to measure the sustainability status. A dynamic simulation model of the soil-plant system was used to predict the pollutant export to surface runoff and ground water. Pollutant accumulation in the soil profile was also predicted by the model. The traditional design procedure has been extended using the sustainable index as a design criterion and the simulation model for data generation. The application of sustainable concept and index was demonstrated through a test case. Ground-water pollution was found to be the controlling factor instead of water requirement and nutrient removal capacity in this case.

Hong Kong: the challenge of sustainability

This paper focuses on the application of sustainability concepts in Hong Kong. It briefly reviews the evolution of environmental management approaches in the territory and discusses the continuing tension that exists between the desire to promote economic growth and the need for the formulation of environmentally sustainable development strategies. The paper argues that sustainable development poses a particular challenge for Hong Kong because of the existing relationship between pollution control and environmental policy, the way in which environmental matters are handled within government, and the limited extent of public consultation and accountability.