In recent years, the state of the environment has been of increasing concern to all its inhabitants. Although not always the immediate focus of this concern, the buildings in which we live our lives have an immense impact on the global ecosystem. “Green building,” also known as sustainable development, is construction with the goal of balancing resource efficiency, health, and social concerns throughout the life-cycle of a structure, and is becoming more and more essential as we progress through the 21st century. Building with concrete can help you achieve this goal of sustainability.

Concrete Production

Concrete is the world’s most prolific building material. It’s extremely flexible and durable, and can be used to create almost anything: roads, bridges, office building, dams, driveways, homes, hospitals, etc. The durability of concrete means fewer repairs and maintenance, making it a good choice economically and environmentally.

So concrete is strong, but what exactly is it and why is it environmentally sound? Many people confuse cement and concrete. Cement is an ingredient of concrete: a gray powder that binds sand and aggregates together when mixed with water to form the solid mass of concrete. Although making cement requires a great deal of energy, it is only a minor portion of the composition of concrete, about 12%. All of the other ingredients require very little energy to obtain. Additionally, research in recent years has led to more environmentally sound manufacturing of cement by decreasing carbon dioxide output by 29%.

Research has also led to the use of industrial by-products in the manufacturing of cement. For example, used tires contain about 25% more energy than coal, and we generate millions of them. Fly-ash, slag cement, and silica fume, by-products from power plants, steel mills, and silicon manufacturing facilities, are also utilized as energy sources in the production of cement. In 2001, 25 million tires and 90,000 tons of fly ash were consumed as fuel in cement kilns, reducing fossil fuel consumption and diverting the materials from landfills.

In the Long-Run

Despite the energy requirements for producing cement, recently developed methods for building concrete homes generate less carbon dioxide over the life of the home than many traditional home-building methods. ICF walls are highly energy efficient, requiring less energy for daily heating and cooling. In approximately 5 to 7 years, the total carbon dioxide produced by a typical wood-framed home begins to exceed that of an insulated concrete home, a benefit realized for the remaining life of the home.

Concrete and Waste

Concrete is extraordinarily durable, often outliving common building materials by two or three times. The result is less waste clogging our landfills, as concrete needs to be replaced far less than most other materials. And despite this longevity, concrete’s usefulness doesn’t end after its original purpose. Almost all concrete is crushed and recycled for use in road base and backfill or aggregate in new concrete. Additionally, as concrete is mixed for each individual job, on-site scrap and waste are minimized, and leftovers can be recycled. This is in sharp contrast to the piles of scrap lumber and sheathing discarded during the construction of a wood-framed building.

So if you’re interested in preserving our environment and reducing the content of our landfills, choose concrete.

Open a printable PDF file of this information.