Mankind’s relentless march into the future has come with a steep price tag that continues to unfurl before us. The Industrial Revolution launched us on a trajectory we surely weren’t ready for as a society, and we have been playing catch-up ever since. Relative to how long we’ve been in this post-industrial period of exponential growth, we’ve only recently become conscious of the unintended environmental consequences of our actions—of the true extent of our relationship with the Earth. Though we have been calling it Mother Nature for centuries, we are only now beginning to treat her that way.
Beyond the realities of finite natural resources, which we answered with efficiency, conversation, and recycling, we also now acknowledge that our impact on the world effects the rate at which some of our infinite, renewable resources are replenished; this means a diminishing effective capacity available to us. Our soil is overburdened and is quickly being eroded away. Our water systems have become strained, and a sustainable source for the whole population continues to allude us. And maybe most dramatically, we are raising global temperatures and disrupting ecosystems with unpredictable results.
To this end, we as a society are now exploring what it means to live in a truly sustainable way with nature. The engine of growth and development has become soiled with its byproducts, and we are seeking to clean it off, and find a way to guarantee it remains as such.
Man’s march of industrialism gave way to the rapid expansion of our urban sprawl, but also for the increasing density of the urbanization. Modern cities, and by extension construction and infrastructure projects, have been the heart of our collective prosperity. We continue to wrestle with optimizing and eco-proofing the way we operate those cities. ‘Green materials’, energy efficient light bulbs, water reuse systems, the list is extensive, and progress can clearly be seen, yet we still are far from a sustainable equilibrium.
The process of building our cities has undergone transformations in its own right, but is largely unchanged from its roots (we extract and process the resources, and combine them). We use relatively more sustainable materials and cleaner technologies, but when a structure has come to the end of its useful life we demolish it and do it over (usually on a larger scale).
By its very nature, the process of urbanization is wasteful, and we have not done enough to remedy that. Aiming for sustainability is a good start, but we must aspire for nothing short of zero waste—indeed, anything less and with time we will lose. Admittedly this is no easy feat, and will necessarily entail a phased approach.
Rethinking Incentives
We must begin by rethinking the incentive mechanisms in construction contracts. Being under-budget and ahead of schedule are what matter to developers, so they dangle the carrot behind those metrics. Contractors thus opt to use the cheapest materials available, and the most proven technology/engineering, neither of which are necessarily the most sustainable options. But they will get the job done quick, and with some cash in hand.
However, sustainable construction projects have been demonstrated as commercially feasible in a range of geographies, which presents an opportunity to make them the norm. Incentives tied to exceeding minimum sustainability goals create an environment in which more consideration is given to building responsibly—for contractors and building material suppliers as well. With the right motivation, they will surely produce new innovative solutions, and in working together more closely create an integrated driver of sustainable urbanization.
Private developers on the other hand will of course also need their carrot. Government subsidies are an obvious option, but not always a viable one. Corporate social responsibility is a noble prospect to aspire for, but far from ubiquitous. And so, admittedly, this is one thing requiring private and public developers to put their money where their mouths are—their expectations of return need revision. We as a society must pressure them, with the message that this is not an area of concern, but an unwavering, collective demand. We want these beautiful structures and urban environments, but we want them on our terms.
Of course, the process of actively exceeding sustainability goals will need to be carefully monitored, as reliability and safety are equally paramount. How have the requirements been met and surpassed? Has it been at the cost of the structure’s integrity? Will it continue to be fit-for-purpose for its lifetime? What about the operational parameters—is the building still operationally sustainable? As in all things, incentives can have undesirable effects that entirely undermine the whole purpose.
Architectural and Engineering Renaissance
To a certain extent, we are already on our way through this second phase. Architects, engineers, and contractors have already become well versed in the requirements for LEED, BREEAM, and Green Star certifications, meaning they have begun to think about sustainability principles in the context of their respective methodologies.
Yet these systems of certification are flawed in that they were ‘bolted-on’ to the traditional process of obtaining a construction permit and building a project. They use 21st century metrics (energy calculators, water-use studies, ‘green’ material scores, etc.) to measure the sustainability of a project conceived and designed using 20th century engineering standards. Contractors effectively design and build to achieve a sustainability rating (rather than for the sake of sustainability), and developers view their targets as a marketing point or regulatory check-box.
Contractors, arguably being the largest bearers of risk in a project, are squeezed at an end of the value chain. Accordingly they must manage the balancing act of meeting developer sustainability targets and remaining commercially attractive, within a very competitive business environment. From their perspective, the current treatment of sustainability equates to an additional layer of regulatory paperwork, and simply more money (again, significant in a business with little budgetary wiggle room and rigid scheduling demands).
There must be a concerted effort to incorporate sustainability principles into our design standards, as opposed to viewing them as an additional discipline to be engineered for. These principles must form the core of our design philosophy; which is essentially a complete reinterpretation of what structural, electrical, and mechanical engineering mean for our construction sector.
Universities and schools need to dramatically revise their curriculum, making sustainability the determinant part of the design/engineering process. If the engineers of the future are taught to design and build sustainably from the outset, rather than look to make existing methods more sustainable, then we will have succeeding in taking a critical step toward bringing harmony to our urban and natural environments. The entire ecosystem around construction/infrastructure projects will of course follow in-line, or be left behind.
We have already seen an interesting example of this in the ongoing effort to ready the Gulf state of Qatar for the FIFA World Cup in 2022. The stadiums currently under construction were designed such that at the end of the games, they will be broken down and rebuilt in poorer African nations—a noble effort by any measure. Alas this innovative idea is largely in the shadow of severe civil rights violations of migrant laborers, and probably offset by the scale of permanent infrastructure and hospitality projects being developed in parallel.
Construction-to-Construction
Once we have properly aligned all the stakeholders with our societal aspirations, we will be well positioned to take the last critical leap, and close the loop. Currently we build, we use, we demolish, and do it again. Like the Ouroboros (the snake eating its tail), we must redirect the end-of-life decommissioning phase of our structures, to feed our construction and infrastructure projects. If I might borrow the C2C acronym and reword it, we must universally adopt a “Construction-to-Construction” model for our urbanization.
Construction-to-Construction means an end to the development of new projects, instead replaced with the reestablishment of existing structures into a new form and possibly in a new place (we no longer build buildings and bridges, but reconstruct condemned structures). In linking our demand for residential, commercial, and industrial space with the existing supply that is nearing its end, we create a closed-loop system and bring our society closer to that zero-waste equilibrium.
Much like how the steel industry pushes for more and more use of scrap as opposed to iron ore, building material suppliers and contractors need to shift their focus toward maximizing the utilization of secondary materials. They must be charged with the responsibility (or at least incentivized correctly) to identify and integrate as much of an old project into the new. Use of primary materials can be discouraged through strict conditional approvals (essentially making the old, easy options subject to the regulatory hurdle that sustainability is perceived to be today).
To be sure we are already doing this in a limited capacity. Though wood, glass, and synthetic materials are largely land-filled, concrete rubble is broken down and sent back to manufacturers for reprocessing. As noted above, metal scrap is routed back to the smelters as well. But we must further optimize this process by finding ways to reuse concrete sections or steel rebar without reinvesting the energy to transport and reprocess them.
Contractors and material suppliers are obviously not prepared to engage in the potentially complicated process of assessing and inventorying materials at old sites, decomposing, and reusing them—and so there is an opportunity for the construction ecosystem to expand. That is, a more active role for material suppliers as they look to source secondary materials effectively. Or perhaps the emergence of a specialist in the industry, responsible for deconstructing structures as opposed to demolishing them.
Rather than condemned or abandoned properties sitting idle, a welcoming venue for elicit activities, we add a layer of business to the construction value chain. Demolition services will evolve into ‘deconstruction’ crews, and begin sitting at the table with developers, contractors, and materials suppliers at project inception. These specialists will naturally develop an understanding of the local and regional landscape for structures at the end of their useful lives. They will become proficient at translating new project requirements into what is available within the secondary material market (types, sizes, specifications, etc.). Perhaps most challenging will be that effort of cataloging and matching inventories. Surely robotics, big data, and the digitalization of everything will facilitate these processes with ease.
As with all things, there are several risks and teething issues associated with this new model. In seeking to maximize the amount of existing material we reuse, technological innovations in building materials could be hampered. Though research in materials science will undoubtedly continue, the regulatory environment of Construction-to-Construction may make it prohibitively expensive or difficult to implement newer, advanced materials.
Additionally, older materials that are deemed hazardous (e.g. asbestos, drywall, etc.) might find their way into new projects rather than being disposed of properly. Perhaps the feasibility of deconstructing old structures might be questionable in some situations or in densely packed geographies. Also, the added complexity of this model could hamper the speed of construction and development in general. The reality is this is one of those things that will require fine-tuning as adoption across the world increases. As deconstruction best practices take root and grow, we should see some of these issues mitigated away.
At the socio-cultural level, given the complex and limiting nature of this model, elaborate architectural designs may be more challenging to realize. We must view this much like agri-business, and specifically the raising of cattle (the largest contributor of greenhouse gases to our environment). It is a problem that likely will not be solved by innovative technologies, but by changing our dietary habits—simply eating less meat. In parallel, our fascination with grandiose and awe-inspiring skyscrapers will need to be similarly tempered. Our perception of these structures as monuments in our cities needs to be adjusted to a more utilitarian view; it must ultimately be about function before form.
But we should find great relief in the sustainability measures already being implemented. It is to our advantage that the industry is already heavily regulated. As the radical changes of Construction-to-Construction roll out, the stakeholders already operating under such scrutiny will have little room to deviate. An increasingly firm regulatory environment rules out any potential ‘creative solutions’ on the part of contractors.
We must increasingly take ownership of our collective actions, and begin to view them in light of their absolute impact rather than the immediate value they generate. When Rachel Carson wrote “Silent Spring”, she brought to light an issue we have ever since been aggressively trying to extricate from our society. Upton Sinclair penned “The Jungle” in hopes of drawing attention to the harsh working conditions migrant laborers faced in the meat packing industry. Instead it inspired a food health and safety movement which surely contributed to the extension of life expectancy through the 20th century. Urbanization is in dire need of such a revolution.
Written by Farah Tamer