ASSIGNMENT – EMSC5103

SHARMAN MOHAMED SHARIFF

CGS00421017

SEPTEMBER SEMESTER 2010

EMSC5103 – SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION

Question 1

a. What is sustainable development?

It is perhaps easier to clarify the definition of sustainability at the other extreme and set out features of ‘unsustainability’. Unsustainable development is usually associated with ozone depletion, poor sanitation, extinction of species and habitat, social conflict, toxic pollution and resource depletion. Action plans to address these problems gave birth to the sustainable movements; movements on concerns about the future capacity of the planet to sustain life.

Sustainability is often misinterpreted as being synonymous with the term ‘green’ or ‘environmental’. However, this only represents a third of the agenda. It is impossible to talk of one strand of the sustainable development agenda without considering the others – especially if the agenda is to become more than just a theoretical construct.

A useful starting point, therefore, comes from confirmation that sustainability embraces the three themes of environmental, social and economic accountability – often known as the triple bottom line. Sustainability can be achieved by minimizing negative impacts and maximizing benefits. The best way of doing this is to look for solutions that solve more than one problem at a time. These solutions are known as ‘win-win-win’, as they secure economic, social and environmental benefits simultaneously. Win-win solutions and triple bottom lines are an ideal way of thinking about sustainability as they emphasize the need to integrate social, environmental and economic issues.

Perhaps, the most well-known definition of sustainable development comes from the Bruntland report which states: ‘Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.’ (WCED 1987:43). This report refers to the 1987 report of the World Commission on Environment and Development after the commission’s chair, the former Prime Minister of Norway, Gro Harlem Bruntland. This report was translated into 24 languages and popularized the idea of sustainable development as being concerned with intergenerational equity and justice.

Question 1b. “The construction industry is responsible for consuming around 40% of world resources and

energy and emits almost 40% Green House Gases.” Discuss this statement in the light of the current global environmental issues.

In several countries, construction has been identified as the first sector to require specific attention in meeting the sustainable agenda. There are several reasons for this. First, in sustainable development terms, construction is consistently responsible for some of the most profound negative impacts. The construction industry consumes more raw materials than any other industrial sector and is responsible for a significant proportion of Europe’s waste stream. The United Kingdom construction industry provides a tenth of the UK’s gross domestic product and employs 1.4 million people. It is responsible for over 25% of all industry-related pollution incidents. It is estimated that 70 million tonnes of construction and demolition materials end up as waste every year; of which 13 million tonnes comprises material delivered to sites and thrown away unused (DETR 2000:10). The energy used in constructing, occupying and operating buildings is responsible for about 50% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions. Our buildings are less healthy, less efficient, generate more waste, and are more polluting and more costly to run.

What is more worrying is this trend would not be changing any time soon. In nearly every sector of the economy, technological advancement has fuelled several changes to business attitudes. For example, the manufacturing industry has become leaner, cleaner and more efficient at all tasks. However, most of the construction process continues to be unsustainable and the industry does not seem likely to make any changes on its own accord. As Sir John Fairclough (2002:30) confirmed in the recommendations to his report, construction is presently ‘perceived as dirty, dangerous and old fashioned’, and to address this problem it needs to be seen as central to achieving a sustainable future. Similar sentiments are echoed throughout the world. For example, to paraphrase the opening paragraph of a review of the state of construction in Singapore: the construction industry in many parts of the world has a poor image and it can easily be singled out from the rest of the economy by attitudes, technologies, processes and a culture that are at least half a century old (Dulaimi et al. 2001:1).

It is therefore of paramount importance that the construction industry regulate itself to rid itself off the entire negative connotation when the agenda of sustainability is discussed. In practical terms, sustainable construction can be reduced to three important messages for the way the industry should work.

Buildings and infrastructure projects should become more cost effective to produce and run, because they have been constructed with less and yield more.

Construction projects should contribute positively to their environment, using materials and systems that are easily replenished over their full life cycle.

Contractors and clients should, wherever possible, create higher standards of respect for people and communities involved with the project, from the site workers through to the final community of users.

Question 2 (a)What are the major environmental areas of deterioration?

One of the major environmental areas of deterioration is the depletion of the ozone layer. As per the question presented in question 1 (b) above, “The construction industry is responsible for consuming around 40% of world resources and energy and emits almost 40% Green House Gases”. Buildings alone are responsible for 38% [1] of all human Green House Gases (GHG) emissions (20% residential, 18% commercial). It is the industrial sector which contributes the most to climate change. In the US, construction is also responsible for 46% of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

Image source; Greenhouse effect: Wikipedia

Since the construction industry is ‘marked’ as the major culprit of climate changes and ozone depletion, the government must step up their effort to bring this statistic down to a more manageable level. We already have the litigations in place via the Environmental Act 1974; it is

only the question of implementation and enforcement. I have been working at a project site building a highway and in my three years there, officers from the Department of Environment had only visited the site once, surely inadequate to assess my company’s commitment in protecting the environment. Of course, self-regulating is encouraged, but here in Malaysia more emphasis is placed on the bottom-line (profit) and anything else not related in making profit will be thrown out of the window; so to speak. Make it compulsory for officers of DOE to visit project sites and maybe this attitude will change. Malaysians in general will toe the line when enforcement is forced in their throat. It is either this or face the consequences of an unsustainable development culture which subsequently will bring on major environmental disasters. Remember Bukit Antarabangsa?

Major landslide at Bukit Antarabangsa

Deforestation is the consequences of the never ending thirst of the construction industry to consume resources, in this case, timber. Analysis of figures from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) shows that Malaysia’s annual deforestation rate jumped almost 86 percent between the 1990-2000 period and 2000-2005. In total, Malaysia lost an average of 140,200 hectares – 0.65 percent of its forest area – per year since 2000. These declines are mostly attributed to urbanization, agricultural fires, forest conversion for oil palm plantations and other forms of agriculture. Part of a highway being constructed currently from Senai to Desaru in Johore cut through numerous palm oil plantations without anything done to replenish the vegetation destroyed in the name of development. A 1.7kms cable-stayed bridge is also being constructed across Sg. Johore. The ecological impact of this bridge construction was never brought out in any meetings I have attended. Are we so hell bent on construction that we forgot about the consequences of current development on future generation?

Question 2 (b)Discuss briefly the principles of Sustainable Construction articulated by the CIB [the Conseil International du Batiment] in 1994.

In 1994, the CIB, an international construction research networking organization, defined the goal of sustainable construction as ‘……..creating and operating a healthy built environment based on resource efficiency and ecological design.”[2] The CIB articulated Seven Principles of Sustainable Construction, which would ideally inform decision making during each phase of the design and construction process, continuing throughout the building’s entire life cycle. These seven principles apply across the entire life cycle of construction, from planning to disposal (herein referred to as deconstruction rather than demolition). Furthermore, these principles were also applied to the resources needed to create and operate the built environment during its entire life cycle: land, materials, water, energy, and ecosystems.

The Seven Principles of Sustainable Construction are as follows:

Reduce resource consumption (reduce).

Reuse resources (reuse)

Use recyclable resources (recycle)

Protect nature (nature)

Eliminate toxics (toxics)

Apply life-cycle costing (economics)

Focus on quality (quality)

The main focus of these seven principles is a resource-conscious design mentality that is essential in sustainable construction. Ultimately, with this design mentality in place, it is hoped that dependence on an already declining natural resources could be minimized; as with the resulting impact on ecological systems.

Closing material loops and eliminating solid, liquid and gaseous emissions are key sustainability objectives with it comes to material selection with respect to the seven principles of sustainability construction. Closed loop is a process of keeping resources in productive use via recycling rather than disposing them as waste. These recycled resources must be inherently non-toxic to biological systems. Common construction materials are not totally recyclable, but rather downcyclable, for lower-value reuse such as for fill or road subbase. Fortunately, aggregates, concrete, fill dirt, block, brick, mortar, tiles, terrazzo, and similar low-technology materials are composed of inert substances with low ecological toxicity. In the United States, the 140 million tons of construction and demolition waste produced annually comprise about one third of the total solid waste stream, consuming scarce landfill space, threatening water supplies, and driving up the cost of construction. As part of the green building delivery system, manufactured products are evaluated for their life-cycle impacts, to include energy consumption and emissions during resource extraction, transportation, product manufacturing, and

installation during resource extraction, transportation, product manufacturing, and installation during construction, operational impacts, and the effects of disposal.

A philosophy of sustainable land use is based upon the principle that land, especially undeveloped, natural or agricultural land (greenfields) is a precious, finite resource, and its development should be minimized. Effective planning is essential to create efficient urban forms and minimizing urban sprawl, which leads to overdependence on automobiles for transportation, excessive fossil fuel consumption, and higher pollution levels. Like other resources, land is recyclable and should be restored to productive use whenever possible. “Recycling” disturbed land such as former industrial zones (brownfields) and blighted urban areas (grayfields) back to productive use facilitates land conservation and promotes economic and social revitalization in distressed areas.

Energy conversation could be best practiced by having an effective building design, which integrates there general approaches:

1. Designing a building envelope that is highly resistant to conductive, convective, and radiative heat transfer;

2. Employing renewable energy resources;

3. Fully implementing passive design.

Passive design employs the building’s geometry, orientation, and mass to condition the structure using natural and climatological features such as the site’s solar insolation,3 thermal chimney effects, prevailing winds, local topography, microclimate, and landscaping. Since 30 percent of domestic primary energy is consumed by buildings in the United States, increased energy efficiency and a shift to renewable energy sources can substantially reduce carbon dioxide emissions and mitigate climate change.

Availability of potable water is the limiting factor for development and construction in many areas of the world. Climate alterations and erratic weather patterns precipitated by global warming threaten to further limit the availability of this most precious resource. Since only a small portion of the Earth’s hydrological cycle yields potable water, protection of existing ground and surface water supplies is increasingly critical. Once water is contaminated, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to reverse the damage. Water conservation techniques include the use of low-flow plumbing fixtures, water recycling, rainwater harvesting, and xeriscaping, a landscaping method that utilizes drought-resistant plants and resource-conserving techniques. Innovative approaches to wastewater processing and stormwater management are also necessary to address the full scope of the building hydrologic cycle.

Sustainable construction considers the role and potential interface of ecosystems in providing services in synergistic fashion. Integration of ecosystems with the built environment can play an important role in resource-conscious design. Such integration can supplant conventional manufactured systems and complex technologies in controlling external building loads, processing waste, absorbing stormwater, growing food, and providing natural beauty, sometimes referred to as environmental amenity.

Even though terms such as ecological design, ecologically sustainable design, and green design are widespread these days, truly sustainable green commercial buildings with renewable energy systems, closed material loops, and full integration into the landscape are rare to nonexistent. Most existing green buildings feature incremental improvement over, rather than radical departure from traditional construction methods. Nonetheless, this process of ‘trial and error,’ along with the steadily acceptance of incorporation of sustainability principles, continues to advance the industry’s evolution towards the ultimate goal of achieving complete sustainability throughout all phases of the built environment’s life cycle.

To conclude, a framework must be developed to satisfy the needs of all parties concerned. Pressure to produce an acceptable sustainable construction while minimizing cost as well as causing the environment the least damage is no easy feat. Governments must act as the major advocator and the front runner in initiating sustainability principles. This will definitely result in increase in cost and price. In order to soften the cost impact, sustainability must be taken into account during the design stage whilst at the same time, not to overlook the satisfaction of the end user; which is one of the important elements to achieve sustainability. And since this sustainability actions are carried out for the benefit of our future generations, it does not hurt if governments start in calculate the principles of sustainability in our children, start them young so that when they are ready to take over from us, they will always have a thought of the environment in anything they do.

Question 3 (a)What are “Low Carbon Buildings”?

Buildings alone atone for 38% of all human Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions (20% residential, 18% commercial). The industrial sector is the biggest contributor to Climate Change. Even so, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), it is also the sector which presents the most cost effective opportunities for GHG reductions.

Low-carbon buildings (LCB) are buildings which are specifically designed and engineered with GHG reduction in mind. So by definition, a LCB is a building which emits significantly less GHG than regular buildings.

Presently, there is no emissions threshold under which a building could be considered as a LCB. But, in order to be genuinely “Climate Change Neutral”, a LCB would have to achieve at least 80% GHG reduction compared to traditional buildings. According to the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, our emissions would have to be reduced to 80% compared to current level in order not to exceed the Earth’s natural capacity to remove GHG from the atmosphere.

Question 3 (b)

What is ecological footprint?

The ecological footprint is a measure of human demand on the Earth’s ecosystems. It compares human demand with the Earth’s ecological capacity to regenerate. It represents the amount of biologically productive land and sea area needed to regenerate the resources a human population consumes and to absorb and render harmless the corresponding waste. Using this assessment, it is possible to estimate how much of the Earth (or how many planet Earths) it would take to support (sustain) humanity if everybody lived a given lifestyle. For 2006, humanity’s total ecological footprint was estimated at 1.4 planet Earths – in other words, humanity uses ecological services 1.4 times as fast as Earth can renew them.

William Rees and Mathis Wackernagel suggested that an ecological footprint, referring to the land area required to support a certain population or activity, could serve as a surrogate measure for total resource consumption, thus allowing a simple comparison of the resource consumption of various lifestyles. The ecological footprint is the inverse of carrying capacity, and represents the amount land needed to support a given population. An ecological footprint calculation indicates that, for example, the Dutch need a land area 15 times larger than that of The Netherlands to support their population. The population of London, England, requires a land area 125 times greater than its physical footprint. If everyone on Earth enjoyed a North American lifestyle, it would take up to five planet Earths, owing to the increasingly consumptive U.S. lifestyle and the burgeoning world population, which exceeds 6 billion currently according to the United States Census Bureau. The ultimate problem that must be solved, especially in the

context of sustainable development, is how all the people can have a decent quality of life without destroying the planetary systems that support life itself. A partial solution requires developed countries to dramatically reduce consumption and to ensure that developing countries receive resources sufficient for more than mere survival. Such resource sharing lies at the heart of the original formulation of sustainable development, which values the goal of moving the developing world from mere survival to the ability to sustain a reasonably good quality of life. As William Rees notes in the preface to the book, Our Ecological Footprint, “On a finite planet, at human carrying capacity, a society driven mainly by selfish individualism has all the potential for sustainability of a collection of angry scorpions in a bottle.”

Question 3 (c)

Calculate your carbon and H20 foot prints based on your energy and water consumptions per year.

Please refer to attachment 1.

Question 4

Discuss the NINE (9) bases for Ecological Design suggested by Ken Yeang in his books, “Designing with Nature” (1985) and “Ecodesign – A Manual for Ecological Design” (2008)

Give FIVE (5) examples of Ken Yeang’s prominent works accompanied by your comments.

Dr. Ken Yeang was born in 1948 and is a prolific Malaysian architect and writer best known for developing environmental design solutions for high-rise buildings in the tropics. Yeang is regarded as the father or inventor of the bioclimatic skyscraper, largely attributed to his book The Skyscraper: Bioclimatically Considered (1997, John Wiley and Sons). His early work which incorporated bioclimatic principles as passive low-energy design, led to his ecologically sustainable agenda. Early experiments include the Roof-Roof House in Kuala Lumpur (1985), providing a louvered umbrella structure over the building.

Roof-Roof House

Yeang’s ecomasterplans establish, through design, a single living system that is both interactive yet functional and requires biointegration of four ecoinfrastructural armatures in order to be an overall coherent system:

1) Green infrastructure which includes nature’s corridors and networks that link open spaces and habitats for flora and fauna;

2) Grey infrastructure which includes sustainable engineering system such as roads, drainage, sewage, and utilities;

3) Blue infrastructure which encompasses hydrological management, water conservation, sustainable drainage, bioswales, filtration strips, retention ponds, and storm water management;

4) Red infrastructure which includes the built environment, enclosures, and hardscapes and human socio-economic and political systems.

This is a ground breaking approach to ecomasterplanning that provides a general framework that allows an inclusiveness of complex factors, but has a flexibility that shows obsolescence.

Yeang also suggested nine numbers of premises or bases for ecological design and there are as follows:

1. Design must be integrated not only with the environment, but also with the ecosystems that are present.

An ecosystem is a biological environment consisting of all organisms living in a particular area, as well as all the nonliving, physical components of the environment with which the organisms interact, such as air, soil, water and sunlight. So, in a way, Dr. Yeang insists that a building design must take into account the impact of the design on not only the environment but also the impact of the design on the ecosystems that are present in that particular area.

2. Because Earth is essentially a closed system, matter, energy, and ecosystems must be conserved and the biosphere’s waste assimilation capacity considered.

Whatever natural resources that have been consumed, such as natural gas, it will take million of years to replenish or in a worst case scenario, would never ever be replaced again. In view of this, Dr. Yeang championed the cause of preserving earth’s natural resources as much as possible when designing buildings. Usage of material such as plastic, which take ages to decomposed must be curbed, or at least, lessen. A cleaner and better ways to dispose of waste should be developed.

3. The context of the ecosystem, its relationship with other ecosystems, must be considered.

The inter-relationship between ecosystems, such as land ecosystems and marine ecosystems must be considered in the context of what is the implication of one over the other when considering build environment designs.

4. Designers must analyze and use each site for its physical and natural structures to optimize the design.

Optimizing design does not only benefit the environment but it could also have an impact on the profitability of the project. Hence it is wise for designers to carefully study the site as to minimize the effect of the development to the environment and ecosystems, to use the physical and natural structures to its ecological design advantages and at the same time, saves on the monetary resources.

5. The impact of the design must be considered over its entire life cycle.

For an ecological design to be effective, the design must take into consideration the entire life cycle of the built environment. This design paradigm is sometimes referred to as ‘cradle to grave’ design meaning every aspect of the design; from conception to the deconstruction of the built environment must be factored in into the design. It could comprise of materials to be used in the construction, optimizing its power requirements, how waste is treated, how the surrounding environment(s) protected etc.

6. Buildings displace ecosystems, and the matter-energy impacts must be considered

It is an undeniable fact that whatever development is taking place, it will displace the ecosystems in its surrounding area. It is the responsibility of the designers whom embraces the thought school of ecological design to minimize the impact, and to try their hardest so that the built environment could co-exist harmoniously with its environment. A system to replace what has been destroyed must be in place to mitigate the impact on the ecosystems affected.

7. Due to the complex impacts of built environments on nature, the design must be approached holistically rather than in a fragmented manner.

The approach to ecological design should be through enough to encompass every aspect of the built environment and the effect that it will have on its surrounding environment and the ecosystems. The design should not be carried out half-heartedly but should be carried out rather religiously. It should be base on the basic fundamental of sustainability; development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (WCED 1987:43).

8. The limited assimilative capacity of ecosystems for human induced waste must be factored into design.

Hoping that the ecosystem will correct and cleanses whatever humans throw at her is folly. Ecosystem does not have the capacity nor the urgency to adept itself to face the torrent of human induced waste. Ecological designers must factor in whatever help they could summon to support and help the ecosystems in eliminating the waste.

9. Design should be responsive and anticipatory, and as much as possible result in beneficial effects for natural systems.

Forward thinking should be accorded to the environment and the ecosystem, and actions to protect them should be proactive rather than reactive. Through experience,

this anticipatory response should not be a problem for designers. Ways and means should be sought to further enhance what has already been in place. Better methods should be introduced and research and development hasten for the benefits of the environment.

Dr. Yeang in upholding his beliefs and principles with regards to ecodesign has thus far designed over 200 projects since 1975. Among his more prominent works are:

The Roof-Roof House, Kuala Lumpur (1985) – a bioclimatic house that rethought the idea of bioclimatic responses to passive-mode low energy building design.

Menara Mesiniaga Tower, Subang Jaya (1992) – another prime example of Dr Yeang’s ecological and environmental design strategies that reduces long-term maintenance costs by lowering energy use. Designing with the climate in mind brought on an aesthetic dimension to Dr. Yeang’s work that is not found in a typical glass-enclosed air-conditioned medium medium-to-high rise building.

National Library of Singapore (2005) - Dr. Yeang applied all of his expertise on designing buildings to suit its climate surrounding to the National Library of Singapore. The building has sweeping facade on the east, a vast array of projecting blades and shelves, and a UFO-shaped viewing pavilion hovering above the roof. These moves help animate what could have been a large, squat building—630,000 square feet and only 16 stories high. And by carving deep recesses and skycourts into the white blocky form, Dr. Yeang creates a lively play of shadow and light that not only pleases the eye but offers cool spaces for people using the building.

Kowloon Waterfront Masterplan, Hong Kong (1998) – In an interview carried out by the Redha Institute on 23rd April 2010, this is what Dr. Yeang has to say about the green masterplan; and I quote: “Well, the green masterplan has to respect nature. You see, what we do as human beings is that we chop up nature. We not only chop up, we remove nature. Once you chop up nature, you are fragmenting nature. It doesn’t work as an ecological system anymore. The species from here (one place) cannot come here (be placed at another location). The whole ecology is gone. So a green masterplan is one that respects the ecology and replaces it.

So what you want to do is to maintain connections, from corridor to corridor, so that there is continuity. The linkages in the ecology system are there (remains). These linkages are not just vegetation. There are water systems. There are flows. There are processes that you have to respect. There are many results of clearing land. (When you) clear vegetation, (the) earth becomes exposed. Once (the) earth is exposed, you have erosion. Where does the erosion go? It goes to the water waste. The water waste kills the aquatic life. So what you do here has impact on the physical environment.”

DiGi Technical Office, Kuala Lumpur (2010) - The façades of the Data Centre are designed with vertical green walls that act as living walls and as means of filtering and improving a building’s indoor air quality. Green walls are a living, breathing, regenerating type of cladding that can be as simple as a living art installation or as complex as a biological air filter. Green walls, both indoors and out, decrease local CO2, increase local humidity, trap dust, reduce noise and create a habitat for urban wildlife. Exterior green wall installations reduce solar gain (the entrapment of heat by passive solar gain on the building surface) and, by extension, building energy costs; provide protection from the effects of UV radiation and acid rain; and help lessen the building’s contribution to the heat island effect (when forest is replaced with concrete and asphalt, causing urban centers to become warmer than nature areas).

Question 5 (a)

What are the main aims of Green Buildings?

Green Building Index was developed by Pertubuhan Akitek Malaysia (PAM) and the Association of Consulting Engineers Malaysia (ACEM). It is initiated by the building professionals to lead Malaysian building industry with the goal of becoming more environmental-friendly. The main aims of Green Buildings is to increase the efficiency of resources use; energy, water and materials; while reducing the impacts of building on human health and the environment during the building’s lifecycle, through better sitting, design, construction, operation, maintenance, and removal. Green Buildings should be designed and operated to reduce the overall impact of the built environment on its surroundings.

Green buildings are designed to save energy and resources, recycle materials and minimize the emissions of toxic substances throughout its life cycle.

Green buildings harmonize with the local climate, traditions, culture and the surrounding environment.

Green buildings are able to sustain and improve the quality of human life whilst maintaining the capacity of the ecosystem at local and global levels.

Green buildings make efficient use of resources; have significant operational savings and increases workplace productivity.

Building green sends the right message about a company or organization – that it is well run, responsible, and committed to the future.

Question 5 (b)

What is Green Building Index [GBI]?

The Green Building Index [GBI] is Malaysia’s industry recognized green rating tool for buildings to promote sustainability in the built environment and raise awareness among Developers, Architects, Engineers, Planners, Designers, Contractors and the Public about environmental issues and our responsibility to the future generations.

The GBI rating tools provide a guideline for architects, developers and building owners to design and construct green, sustainability buildings that can provide energy savings, water savings, a healthier indoor environment, better connectivity to public transport and the adoption of recycling and greenery for their projects and reduce our impact on the environment.

GBI is developed with Malaysia’s unique characteristics in mind; tropical climate, environmental and development context, cultural and social needs and is created to:

Define green buildings by establishing a common language and standard of measurement;

Promote integrated, whole-building designs that provides a better environment for all;

Recognize and reward environmental leadership;

Transform the built environment to reduce its negative environmental impact; and

Ensure new buildings remain relevant in the future and existing buildings are refurbished and upgraded to improve the overall quality of our building stock.

Question 5 (c)

Apply the ratings of Malaysia’s GBI to a building of your choice. What is your GBI assessment?

Please refer to attachment 2.

ASSIGNMENT – EMSC5103

SHARMAN MOHAMED SHARIFF

CGS00421017

SEPTEMBER SEMESTER 2010

EMSC5103 – SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION