Engineering - Sustainability and Innovation - Assignment Example

The place should exude warmth and confidence. Sustainable construction is therefore very critical to the economic, social and environmental fabric of society. Estimates suggest that in developing countries about 40% of the human population would be living in cities compared to 20% that was present in 1950. (Sustainable Building & Construction, 2003) Around 40,000 sq.km of cultivable land is being urbanized every year. The worst areas that are going to be hit are the developing countries where infrastructure boom is coming up in the next few years.

It is understood that the building designs are capable of lasting 80-100 years on an average. It is therefore very important that a construction having such large scale life should be built in a sustainable manner so that fits into the surrounding environment. It can be argued that while lands that are used for irrigation being converted to concrete jungles would inevitably lead to loss of farming and have an adverse effect on the food chain around the world, rise in construction activity would lead to increase in jobs in the construction sector.

Estimates indicate that around 3 trillion US dollars are being pumped into the construction sector annually and this accounts for 10% of the world GDP. (Moavenzadeh F, 1994) An estimated 111million worker of which 74% belong to the developing countries and of this 28% engaged in industrial development is what has been found out per the last census. (Sustainable Building & Construction, 2003) While it cannot be argued that construction is a sector that generates large scale employment, its drawback is lack of job security and personal health issues of working personnel.

This sector is also predominantly male and since most of the jobs are in the unorganised sector their issues are not aptly addressed. A survey conducted in UK indicated that around 600 workers die annually due to asbestos intoxication, 30% suffer skin disorders and around 40% have bone and ligament fractures. (Sustainable Building & Construction, 2003) About 55000 workers die annually due to construction related accidents. Environment related incidents are the next major cause of concern which has strengthened the call more strongly for sustainable construction.

Deforestation and illegal mining with scant respect to the nature is harmful to the environment. Apart from this energy a large amount of energy is also consumed in transporting these raw materials from its area of origin to other developing countries. (Bossink & H.J Brouwers, 1996) A concept introduced in 1970 called the embodied energy tries to calculate the sum total energy that would be required right from its inception stage, transportation and finally till the construction stage. The effort always is to limit the amount of embodied energy so that one can move towards sustainable construction.

The major source of greenhouse emissions is usually for the production of cement which entails a significant amount of fossil fuel burning. Estimates suggest that by 1950 the CO2 emissions would be around four times the present amount. (Sustainable Building & Construction, 2003) It has also been suggested that in the interests of the environment it is best that a greater building density is better compared to a low building density. This would entail