Abstract:
History itself is the evident that from the years together the people moves to the region where they can satisfy their needs and wants with fewer efforts and more opportunities. This thought lead to accumulation of people in some areas resulting in urbanization. As this urban area contributes highly in nation’s economy even the government announce a far reaching progamme of investments in urban development. However, these urban agglomerations manifest generally unsustainable ecologies. The depletion of material resources, the accumulation of waste, and the over-expenditure of non-renewable energy are direct consequences of the predatory expansion of urbanization.
Out of this the major contribution goes to construction industry as the data reveals that Construction is responsible for 40% of the total world flows of raw materials such as sand, gravel and clay. It takes one quarter of all virgin wood, 40% of energy use, 16% of water withdrawals, and produces 17% of all waste generated. If this practise goes on uninterruptible it will cause total exhaustion of natural resource and will create a great question for generations to come for their survival.
This paper aims to add up a new dimension in vision for sustainable development by considering a combined effort of government and industry both. Strategy for the same considers the sustainable development in three phases such, first is the consideration of various tool to achieve it that are Means such as procurement, Design, Innovation etc. Second stage basically defines the ends out of it such as mitigation in climatic changes, water conservation; reduce in wastage and overall optimum use of resources. Final is the controlling stage which is supposed to achieve by using the tools such as implementations of rules for carbon emission and wastage made, formation of government agencies for environmental auditing etc.
This view for Sustainable Construction lays out specific actions by industry and by Government which will contribute to the achievement of overarching targets within each of the main areas covered by the sustainability agenda.
Introduction:
From the years together it is the evident that from the years together the people moves to the region where they can satisfy their needs and wants with fewer efforts and more opportunities. This thought lead to accumulation of people in some areas resulting in urbanization. As this urban area contributes highly in nation’s economy even the government announce a far reaching progamme of investments in urban development. The Jawaharlal Nehru Mission for Urban Renewal cites 60 cities spread across the country on which approximately 200 million EUR is proposed to be invested for upgrading of urban infrastructure, capacity building in urban management, and to provide housing and social services for the urban poor provision made in Indian Economy Plan supports the statement that Urbanisation always develop interest of society and economy. But, looking towards one side of coin will not make any sense. Because for any project to carry on requires resources .sources revile that Out of this the major contribution goes to construction industry as the Construction is responsible for 40% of the total world flows of raw materials such as sand, gravel and clay. It takes one quarter of all virgin wood, 40% of energy use, 16% of water withdrawals, and produces 17% of all waste generated. If this practise goes on uninterruptible it will cause total exhaustion of natural resource and will create a great question for generations to come for their survival. Already the efforts are being taken to make people aware of sustainable growth and different ways to mitigate hazardous actions but still the need exist to add a dimension in vision quoting that sustainable development is not individuals responsibility but the efforts should be taken by the Government and Society both. This vision leads to frame out strategy that would define both government and Individual role and responsibility to play for achieving sustainable growth.
Vision, strategy For Sustainable Development:
The word strategy over here simply means a joint industry and government initiative, and is intended to promote eco-friendly and economic methodologies to deliver benefit for society and generation to come.
Thus the objective can be given as-
• Being more profitable and competitive.
• Delivering buildings and structures that provide greater satisfaction, well-being and value to customers and users.
• Respecting and treating its stakeholders more fairly.
• Enhancing and better protecting the natural environment.
• Minimising its consumption of energy (especially carbon-based energy) and natural
Resources.
This strategy is planed to be applied at three phases, right from the need to controlling measures. Phase one is basically about the needs that will be required for sustainable development or in other words ends. As successful completion of any construction process is result of efforts and strategy applied at each step the strategy is being made to make this process effective. The short summery for all these stages can be summarized as below:
Phase 1: The Needs-
a) Procurement
To achieve improved whole life value through the promotion of best practice construction procurement and supply side integration, by encouraging the adoption of the Construction Commitments in both the public and private sectors and throughout the supply chain.
b) Design
The overall objective of good design is to ensure that buildings, infrastructure, public spaces and places are build able, fit for purpose, resource efficient, sustainable, resilient, adaptable and attractive. Good design is synonymous with sustainable construction. Our aim is to achieve greater use of design quality assessment tools relevant to buildings, infrastructure, public spaces and places.
c) Innovation
To enhance the industry’s capacity to innovate and increase the sustainability of both the construction process and its resultant assets.
d) People
An increase in organisations committing to a planned approach to training (e.g. Skills Pledges; training plans; Investors in People or other business support tools; Continuous Professional Development (CPD); life long learning).Reduce the incidence rate of fatal and major injury accidents by 10% year on year from benchmark .
e) Better Regulation
A 25% reduction in the administrative burdens affecting the private and third sectors, a 30% reduction in those affecting the public sector by 2010.
Phase II:-The Ends:
This stage is nothing but the expected outcome for the sustainable development. Although this outcomes are boundless as mitigating hap hazards to most possible level is extreme limit ,still some of the major or basic ends are summarised below-
a) Climate Change Mitigation
Reducing total carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in our governing region by at least 60% by 2050 and by at least 26% by 2020. Within this, Government has already set out its policy that new homes will be zero carbon from 2016, and an ambition that new schools, public sector non-domestic buildings and other non-domestic buildings will be zero carbon from 2016, 2018 and 2019 respectively.
b) Climate Change Adaptation
To develop a robust approach to adaptation to climate change, shared across Government.
c) Water
To assist with the Future Water vision to reduce per capita consumption of water in the home through cost effective measures, to an average of 130 litres per person per day by 2030, or possibly even 120 litres per person per day depending on new technological developments and innovation.
d) Biodiversity
That the conservation and enhancement of biodiversity within and around construction sites is considered throughout all stages of a development.
e) Waste
By 2015, a 50% reduction of construction, demolition and excavation waste to landfill compared to 2008.
f) Materials
That the materials used in construction have the least environmental and social impact as is feasible both socially and economically.
Phase 3: Controlling Phase:
This is the most important phase as it is basically the mode to control and check out the per planned objectives with the achieved and the reasons for pitfall. For this the benchmark is being set considering a particular year. From the reliable data available the comparison is being made and the goals are set for years to come. This can be illustrated by considering the percentage of waste and pollution caused in the year 2000 for specific production and setting scale for reduction per annum the goal is checked out. Basically this step can be done at two stages.
1) At the time of execution of project :
Generally the check list proves to be best to check out the flow of work is in direction of predefined goals or not. For the check list the weight age is being given as per the importance and emergence of the factor and forces.
2) After completion of Project:
Study should be done to find out the deviations from the specified ends.
This stage will help out to find the magnitude of deviations and the corrective measures that can be taken to over come.
Conclusion:
The efforts turn to the successful ends when predefined outcomes are achieved. Same way this strategy would be affective when effectively applied. Still there are many barriers for this concept to be successfully applied. Some of the major barriers can be listed up as-
• Lack of Education and awareness.
• Legislation and Government policy.
• Political instability.
• Lack of incentives.
• Lack of commitment toward authority and responsibility.
• Regional and cultural barrier.
• Lack of Public understanding.
• Conventional thinking.
Thus for sustainable development both making the strategies as well as implementing them are of equal importance. As the efforts taken will be the benefits for generation to come .
References:
1) Paper published name “The prospect of sustainability” by Dr. Ashok Lal, New Delhi.
2) Green urbanisation- common sense urbanisation by Zaida Muxi ,PhD, Architect, Architecture School of Barcelona (ETSAB-UPC).
3) Towards an evolutionary model of city sustainability, Dr. Darren Robinson, Sustainable Urban Development Authority.
4) Strategy for sustainable construction, 2008 by Shriti Vadera Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (BERR)
5) Holicom forum, 2007 for sustainable development. Green urbanism – Between ecology and economy.
6) Vanessa Tilling, Sustainable Development Awareness Team,
7) Towards sustainable construction. GO-East, Eastbrook, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge, CB2 2DF
We are grateful to Mr.Abhinandan R.Gupta for sharing this research paper with us. We are hopeful that this would be of great use to civil engineers.
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