Political Economy of the Green Innovations in the Construction Industry

Introduction

Climate change and humanity’s environmental footprints challenge survival and welfare of the earth. Humanity’s environmental footprint needs to be reduced to enable the nature to restore and regenerate itself. Human-beings tend to consider themselves to be superior to other living creatures failing to observe the ethical behaviour of animals. Animals do not exploit resources beyond their needs. For example, they stop hunting in case they have hunted to feed themselves. Human-beings, on the other hand, tend to exploit resources without respecting nature, and future generations. Ethics is respecting each other, the nature and the next generations of all species. It can be defined as “… a system of moral principles and a branch of philosophy which defines what is good for individuals and society…” (BBC website, 2018). Sustainability ethics needs to be integrated in the production and consumption processes in all industries. All industries need to respect nature, future generations and biodiversity in their investment strategies and in their supply.

Global construction industry contributes to the global economy. Global construction industry contributes to the social sustainability through employment opportunities, even for less educated workforce, increasing the welfare of the people as well as through supplying the sheltering and accommodation needs of the people. Construction industry, however, has adverse environmental impacts throughout the construction/production processes as well as the entire lifecycle of their outputs (e.g. constructions, buildings). Construction industry is material, water, and energy intensive. The magnitude and size of its environmental footprint can be better understood considering its outputs’ embodied water, embodied carbon and embodied energy. Construction process, starting from raw material extraction, is energy and water intensive. Construction processes and lifecycle of its outputs have carbon footprint especially due to the energy required for the material production and construction processes as well as due to the transportation and mismanaged construction phase (e.g. due to errors in construction causing wasted materials). Furthermore, operation phase of the buildings has environmental footprint especially due to heating and cooling needs of the occupants as well as water consumed by the occupants. Even in the post-occupation phase, in the demolition phase, the buildings have their environmental footprint especially due to the landfill wastes. Sustainability performance of the construction industry needs to be enhanced as it influences global welfare, living conditions, and climate adversely. There have been various efforts (e.g. green or sustainable building assessment tools) in reducing environmental footprint of the construction industry. These efforts have not been effective to cope with the climate change problem which is being observed in an accelerated way. For this reason, effective strategies and efficient technologies for reducing environmental footprint of the construction industry are needed.