Sustainable And Green Buildings Are The Way Forward

In a rapidly growing world economy, infrastructure development has become a key for a country’s progress. Huge investments, large scale and mega projects, increasing need for housing and establishments Sustainable have put the spot light on construction companies.

Since the industrial revolution, there is an increased importance given to building necessary infrastructure across the countries to suit modern lifestyles.

A little history into how this industry started tells us that the construction then was not the one we see today. It has developed from stone age or primitive times where people used tools such as axes, animal bones, stones, Sustainable and whatever was available during those times. As humans started wandering less and settled down, building permanent structures became all the more necessary. Pyramids in Egypt are some of the first few glimpses of large scale structures. Slowly, growing population urbanization and industrialization paved way for the current construction industry which mostly depends on steel, bricks, cement, etc.

All was well until studies came up with construction industry being one of the reasons for global warming, environmental pollution, and increase in carbon foot print. Most of these companies follow similar processes and materials that have put undue pressure on our environment and which promotes environmental pollution. Overtime, supply and demand has exponentially increased due to which millions of trees are cut down every year depleting the natural resources like soil, water, air quality, increases environmental pollution.

It is time construction companies start thinking ecological and environment friendly materials to be used to control environmental pollution that can be economical as well. Since, housing industry is ever growing one can think of different ways to minimize the use of steel, cement, bricks. Reusable materials can be recycled and used at different levels of building a house. For example, wood and bricks from a demolished structure can be accommodated. Use of available natural materials like clay, Prothema bricks instead of traditional red bricks and cement, paints made of natural colors, rainwater harvesting technology, solar energy utilization, use of natural ventilation to avoid lighting during the day, materials that can keep the building cool in summer and warm in winter which reduces unnecessary usage of cooling and heating appliances and many more.

There is enough scope for improvement in terms of architecture, design, cost, aesthetics as these do matter when it comes to building a house for an individual without spreading environmental pollution. They have to look into different aspects of construction and analyze the areas which can be done be away with traditional methods. Companies in construction sector need to keep in mind the damage caused due to extensive use of unsustainable and non-renewable resources. Electricity, water and waste management should be given importance when going for construction of a building. The challenges of construction wastage can be taken care if companies and people opt for green homes and buildings that use natural materials. Making buildings energy efficient by using solar power, also contributing to saving water by rain water harvesting and grey water management goes a long way in making our future generations safe and sustainable. Construction industry has a huge responsibility to remodel their thinking in terms of reduce, recycle and reuse as much as possible and where ever it can be done to control environmental pollution. They need to work on experimenting with various techniques and building materials that can be locally sourced as well and hence result in less environmental pollution. This way, transportation costs decreases considerably and also provide livelihood to local people .New alternatives can be created for a better life, closer to nature if these companies can come up with projects that are aesthetically appealing while being eco-friendly, flexible and economical. However, it is a collective effort by governments, policy makers, construction sector and public to consciously make an effort to reduce carbon foot print to control environmental pollution by adopting sustainable, environment friendly, economical means of construction. Governments can do their bit to subsidies and reward the companies that are into building green structures and promote in a big scale to reduce environmental pollution. This would help companies to become innovative and creative in coming up with eco-friendly solutions. Policy makers should introduce policies that mandate construction companies to adhere to certain green standards. Set up a rating system to boost the performance of companies that are into sustainable building ways would help new firms to think in terms of greener buildings.

Real estate is one sector that has a visible impact on economy as it is one of the most unorganized sector after agriculture. Hence, it is not an exaggeration when changes in construction sector happens, there is a possibility of going through a transformation in many dependent fields.

Conclusion

Finally, we have one Earth and that’s where our future generations are going to live if we strive to make it a better place. Unless you strongly believe in Elon Musk’s idea of making Mars as another habitable planet, do remember that there really is no ‘Planet B’ in this whole universe.