Here is how the Construction Industry affects the climate

Mushreef Ladkhan 14 Dec 2021

Climate change - threatening our future

Climate change is making unprecedented changes to our planet. The oceans are warming up faster than ever since the end of the ice age, the acidification of the oceans is at the highest level in the last 26,000 years and, the sea levels are rising rapidly than any time in the previous century with snow and ice glaciers diminishing day after day. The global average sea level rose by 19 cm as of 2010, and the Arctic sea is losing sea ice of the area greater than the area of the state of Telangana ( about 1.07 * 106 km^2 sea ice ) per decade. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states in its fifth assessment report that "The global emissions of carbon dioxide have increased by almost 50% since 1990. The average global temperature increased by 0.85°C, between 1880 to 2012”. We are already witnessing the unprecedented changes and repercussions in the form of forest fires, catastrophic flooding, submerging coastlines, and weather patterns affecting food production. The construction industry is one of the biggest in the world economy and it is growing rapidly due to the increased global population. The United Nations Environment Programme estimates that the world is expected to construct about 230 billion square meters of new infrastructure within the next 40 years, which is equivalent to adding a built environment of the size of Paris every single week. However, this booming industry is also a prime carbon dioxide contributor. The construction industry accounts for 38% of carbon dioxide emissions, a major greenhouse gas. The construction industry has notoriously wreaked havoc by thrusting the emission of carbon dioxide into building operations and materials production. The United Nations Environment Programme in December 2020, states that the Carbon emission of the construction industry increased to 10 gigatonnes in 2019. Therefore, causing a massive threat to the climate.

Repercussions of unsustainable building practices

Concrete is the second highest consumed material on the planet, only next to the water. Concrete production requires cement. And cement production is a high energy-consuming affair, with one ton of carbon dioxide being emitted for every ton of cement produced. India is the second-largest cement producer after China, producing up to 340 million metric tons of cement per year.
Steel is a major component in Reinforced concrete structures. The steel manufacturing industry is a highly energy-intensive industry, contributing up to 3.7 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide every year.
Rapid urbanization, due to increased population has led to excessive deforestation and mining of natural resources. Natural resources such as timber, sand, metal ores, sediments and rocks etc act as the precursor materials for construction. Up to 48 to 50% of natural resources extracted from the earth’s crust are processed to make construction materials.
Excessive sand mining has led to the depletion of river beds causing banks to erode and leading to massive flooding situations in various locations across the globe. About 50 billion tons of sand is mined from lakes, riverbeds, deltas and coastlines each year according to the United Nations Environment Programme.

Green Construction Practices- disrupting the current Climate change patterns

Since expanding human settlements are inevitable the construction industry is gradually improving its methods of building and management. The world is now seeing massive progress in innovating methods and processes to reduce carbon footprint. And the construction industry is not too far away. The pioneering green building organisations such as India’s Indian Green Building Council (IGBC) have paved the way for sustainable construction. Read more about sustainable construction and AGC INDIA’s green practices in our next issue.

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