Sustainable Principles, Materials and Technologies

Sustainable principles and materials and technologies

1. Department of Civil Engineering U18CE702C Sustainable Materials and Green Buildings Dr. A. Suchith Reddy Associate Professor

2. Course Learning Objectives (LOs): This course will develop students’ knowledge in /on LO1: concepts of sustainability and governing principles LO2 : green and sustainable building materials LO3:energy and carbon reduction in buildings LO4:building performance towards sustainability Course Learning Outcomes (Cos): Upon completion of this course, the student will be able to… CO1: infer the significance of sustainability in construction engineering CO2: appraise and select sustainable building materials CO3: interpret the energy and carbon reduction strategies CO4: rate and propose sustainable building U18CE702C Sustainable Materials and Green Buildings

3. Why does sustainability matter in engineering ? What are principles of sustainability UN Sustainable Development Goals

4. Why does sustainability matter in engineering ? While sustainability obviously matters in every industry, there are a few reasons why it’s a particular concern in engineering : Engineering uses a lot of the earth’s resources, including, carbon, energy, water, and raw materials . Engineering projects also produce a lot of waste . The machinery and vehicles used in engineering can produce harmful emissions and noise pollution . Waste from engineering and development produces pollutants that can contaminate the air and water . Local engineering projects can have a long-lasting global impact .

5. Engineers can play an important role in sustainable community development This puts engineers in a powerful position: since they are the source of the problem, they get to decide how to solve it. While sustainability has to be an organisation-wide effort, engineers decisions carry more weight because they’re responsible for the design and execution of new projects. They decide how to meet the requirements of a job. They can help choose and procure the materials and supplies, and have ideas on how to use equipment and machinery more efficiently to finish a task faster. A project’s efficiency and success depend largely on the engineers. If they start following sustainable practices, the environmental impact of the whole team will probably improve.

6. Sustainable engineering transforms existing engineering disciplines and practices to those that promote sustainability. Sustainable engineering incorporates development and implementation of technologically and economically viable products, processes, and systems that promote human welfare, while protecting human health and elevating the protection of the biosphere as a criterion in engineering solutions. The Principles of Sustainable engineering provide a paradigm in which engineers can design products and services to meet societal needs with minimal impact on the global ecosystem. The principles cannot be taken as independent elements, but rather, should be considered as a philosophy for the development of a sustainable society. The principles are not prescriptive. They do not provide engineers with a definitive methodology for deriving a sustainable design. Rather, they provide engineers with overarching concepts that can be used along with traditional design principles to develop new products and services to be applied for the growth and development of human society, while simultaneously minimizing the impact of these designs on the global ecosystem. What are Engineering Principles for Sustainability

7. Examples on sustainable engineering

8. Examples on sustainable engineering

9. Classification of sustainable engineering principles versus environmental, social, and economic criteria.

10. Various principles of sustainable engineering versus environmental, social, and economic poles (related to above figure) Some of these principles clearly gravitate towards one of the corners of this triangle and thus address particularly societal, environmental, or economic concern. But some others, which are placed along the sides of the triangle, have connections to two of the poles of the diagram and address both societal and economic, or both economic and environmental concerns in some proportion . Those principles placed in the center of the diagram combine all three aspects of sustainability to a certain degree and hence their implementation would benefit all societal, environmental, and economic stakeholders. We should not consider this collection of principles set in stone

11. Principles of Sustainable Engineering Principle Approach Importance 1. Strive to ensure that material/energy inputs and outputs not hazardous (a) Reduce hazard. (b) Reduce exposure. Reduces/minimizes dangers by reduction of intrinsic hazards. 2. Waste minimization over waste management. Good design is creative about use of by-products. Lowers expenses in purchasing and disposal. 3. Design for easy separation and purification. Plan for recycle and reuse. Easy separation/purification = easy waste management. 4. All components must be designed for maximum mass, energy, and temporal efficiency. Smaller is generally better. Lowers expenses. 5. Avoid unnecessary consumption of mass/energy versus. Production must respond to real-time demands. Minimization of overproduction. 6. Use entropy and complexity as guidelines to decide end-of-cycle. Not all products should receive the same end-of cycle treatment. Disposal solutions can no longer be seen as one-size-fits-all. 7. A product must not outlast its uses. Over-design is a design flaw. Decrease accumulation of high-tech waste. 8. A product must not have unnecessary capabilities/capacities. Design for realistic uses and conditions. Reduces/eliminates the use of components needed. 9. Minimize material diversity. Minimize the use of different materials, esp. adhesives, sealants, coating. Simplify waste management. 10. Product creation is only one part of the cycle. Take into account methods of extraction of needed resources and transport. Minimize environmental impact of related life-cycle steps. 11. Evaluate products based on life-cycle analysis. Take into account methods of extraction of needed resources and transport. Minimize environmental impact of related life-cycle steps. 12.Prioritize the use of renewable and readily available resources. Avoid using non-renewables, except when using renewables may be more damaging. Minimize the overall impact of resource use.

12. Sustainability Approaches in Engineering Sustainability Approaches in Engineering Traditional Engineering Sustainable Engineering Considers the object or process Considers the whole system in which the object or process will be used Focuses on technical issues Considers both technical and non-technical issues synergistically Solves the immediate problem Strives to solve the problem for infinite future (forever?) Considers the local context Considers the global context Assumes others will deal with political, ethical, and societal issues Acknowledges the need to interact the experts in other disciplines related to the problem

13. This example presents a success story about how sustainable engineering has been applied to address a critical community need. The need is always placed in the center of an engineering project and directs design efforts. In case of, the need was a flood prevention system. While the traditional approach of creating the  concrete trapezoidal channel (below figure)  would address the need perfectly and cost-effectively, it would have environmental and social trade-offs. For example, construction would destroy or disturb natural vegetation and wildlife, cause high soil erosion, create a large amount of construction waste, and have a negative aesthetic impact . Case Study

14. The alternative approach was to convert these problematic trade-offs into benefits. That require some additional investment and a wider range of collaboration among civil engineers, ecologists, and landscape architects. The result was creation of a permanent, landscaped, ecologically compatible relief channel, with amenities and environmental features of a natural river (below fig.) which eventually became an asset to the community and increased quality of life.

15. The   principles of sustainability  guide the  sustainable design , the process of thinking . This stage determines how things are supposed to be made and how they will function over their whole lifecycle. The   sustainable engineering  stage deals with technical implementation of ideas. Sometimes it is not an easy process, and some aspects of design may be changed or compromised. The design and engineering routes practically converge, we may have a  technology  created. Technology provides processes and products. Only then the benefits of new ideas and new engineering developments become available to society . Here we can identify the role of technology as some sort of portal through which the established principles of  sustainable design and engineering  may affect people’s  lifestyle . Because of people's strong dependence on multiple  technologies , those become the factors that can facilitate change in society and can even become tools of manipulation and initiation of global trends . Below fig. shows how the most general sustainability principles are narrowed down to specific material outcomes for the society.

16. Hierarchy of sustainability guidelines and role of technologies emphasized.

17. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Each individual SDG includes qualitative and quantitative targets to assess if the goal has been met. Across the 17 goals, there are 169 targets and 232 related indicators

18. United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs)

19. What are the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs )? In September 2015, world leaders from all 193 member states of the United Nations (UN) made history by unanimously adopting a 15-year plan for global sustainable development. Known as Agenda 2030, the plan centers on 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that aim for economic growth, social justice and environmental protection everywhere in the world, leaving nobody behind . The SDGs build on decades of international work, including eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), launched by the UN in 1990. While the MDGs helped reduce poverty, hunger and child mortality, and improved access to clean water and sanitation, critics argued that they failed to adequately address within-country disparities, human rights, and environmental concerns, prompting development of the more inclusive SDGs to address such gaps. The systems approach depicts sustainable development as the intersection of the goals attributed to three interlinked systems:  environmental (or ecological), economic and social .

20. What is a Systems Approach ? Rather than aiming to check off the 17 goals separately, a systems-based approach focuses on how we might achieve the SDGs as a coherent unit . A systems-based approach recognizes that progress on one goal, in one place, could either undermine or enhance progress on other goals, there or elsewhere. Interactions and feedbacks among the SDGs can be both negative (producing trade-offs or diminishing efforts) and positive (producing synergies or reinforcing efforts). As an example of a reinforcing feedback, take the targets shown in Figure 1; providing access to safe drinking water (target 6.1), and enabling income growth (target 10.1) will reinforce efforts to eradicate poverty (target 1.1).

21. Why is a systems approach necessary?   Programs that focus on individual goals in isolation are likely to miss opportunities for increasing the impact of limited resources (via synergies and reinforcing feedbacks). In the worst case, a narrow focus that fails to see cross-goal negative feedbacks (e.g. pursuing economic growth without connecting to social or environmental impacts) can entirely undermine the impacts a given sustainable development program is aiming to achieve. Missing the whole :  The land, climate, oceans and water are all part of one Earth life-support system in which humans are intimately embedded. Changes in one affect changes in all. Failing to recognize these interactions is leading to deterioration of the whole Earth system. It has become increasingly clear that safeguarding our land, oceans, freshwater and climate is a precondition for social justice and strong economic development and vice versa. Failing to capture these interactions can undermine critical parts of the functioning whole. Some rationale for taking a systems approach includes the following.

22. One place vs. the world : SDG interactions can be affected by multiple factors like timespan, geography, governance, cultural practices and more. SDG implementation calls for a deep understanding of site-specific context, policy and knowledge, local land management, to truly comprehend global and regional implications. It is essential to be able to answer:  what does progress mean towards a particular SDG in a local or regional context?  before setting an implementation strategy. Similarly , we cannot assume that the sum of local actions will add up to ensure sustainability globally. Leveraging synergies :  Effectively capturing synergies across SDG goals can also lead to increased overall impact including cost savings. For example, simultaneously targeting energy security (goal 7) , climate change (goal 13) and air pollution (linked to multiple goals) in energy systems could improve all three at only slightly higher cost than achieving just the climate change goal alone. 

23. Climate change impacts construction