Sustainable Building Materials of the Future: Remodelling the Construction Industry
As the cost of traditional building materials rise, the construction industry may learn that going green is shifting from being too expensive to do, to too expensive not to do.
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Despite all the lockdowns and upheavals of the past few years, the real estate market is experiencing a worldwide boom. Both residential and commercial properties are being built, renovated and retrofit in record numbers. The construction industry is scrambling to keep up with demand amid supply shortages, price hikes and ever-changing building regulations and requirements.
POLITICAL AND ECOLOGICAL STUMBLING BLOCKS FACING THE FUTURE OF CONSTRUCTION
Because traditional building materials are made using natural resources, international trade and shipping issues affect what gets built where. Case in point: wood. Softwood lumber has been in high demand lately, with the limited supply causing prices to soar last spring.
The biggest importer of wood is the United States, competing with the increasingly urbanised China for European and Russian timber supplies. Canada is no longer an affordable, reliable lumber source for the US due to recently renegotiated trade agreements and the lingering effects of a mountain pine beetle infestation in British Columbia. Sanctions and embargoes placed on all things Russian, due to the war the country started and continues in Ukraine, have effectively made Europe the sole source of lumber for a voracious US market. And with Russia and Ukraine also key suppliers of pig iron, the raw material used in steel, challenges lie ahead for another high-demand building material.
In addition to scarcity issues, many traditional building materials add to climate and environmental woes. Cement manufacturing contributes significantly to the mineral waste stream, while steel production has a carbon emissions problem. With the clock ticking ever more loudly as the net-zero deadline of 2050 approaches, the rush is on to retrofit existing buildings that are energy inefficient and powered and heated through the burning of fossil fuels.
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FUTURE OF ARCHITECTURE: FROM MODULAR HOMES TO WOODEN SKYSCRAPERS
Innovations in the manufacturing of sustainable building materials and architecture trends towards modular homes and multifunctional, hybrid structures are key to a sustainable future of construction. Changes in how sand is processed into glass and recycled glass to replace sand in cement compounds reduce mineral waste and create use for an easily recycled resource.
The World's Biggest Wooden Skyscraper Stands In Norway, Rising 85 Meters Into The Sky. Source: DW Euromaxx
Recycled-glass cement is one of several building materials of the future that can be 3D printed into building components to be used in new constructions and retrofitting existing buildings – and it can be made, shipped and installed quickly and easily. Wood, the building material of choice for centuries in many parts of the world, is now recognised as an important defender in this game of beating the climate clock, due to how it absorbs and traps carbon dioxide. Judiciously used, wood can help lower overall emissions as communities work to renovate and retrofit older, carbon-emitting structures.
HOW WILL THE NEW ARCHITECTURE TRENDS IMPACT OTHER SECTORS?
A differently constructed world will obviously look and function differently, but there are signs that many sectors of society are already on board with this. Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, communal outside areas became the only places where people could meet others from outside their bubbles or exercise safely. Car-free streets went from fringe experiments to commonplace in larger cities, with many communities choosing to maintain these changes after seeing the physical and mental health benefits traffic-free neighbourhoods can bestow.
Similarly, the shifts in the construction industry will have far-reaching implications for everything from politics and urban policy to global trade and consumer culture. Are your organisational strategies prepared for how these shifts will manifest across your products and services?
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