Strategies for mitigating adverse environmental impacts due to structural building materials

This thesis assesses the problem of adverse environmental impacts due to the use of Portland cement and structural steel in the construction industry. The thesis outlines three technology and policy strategies to mitigate these impacts: 1. Reduce consumption; 2. Select materials to minimize impacts; and 3. Explore alternative new materials that have lesser impacts. The main findings and recommendations in each of these areas are as follows: Reduce Consumption: While absolute consumption of materials will grow with a growing population, recycling and reuse of structural members can reduce use of virgin material. Since recycling is already widely practiced, reuse of structural members is the primary means of further reducing consumption. Barriers to reuse can be eliminated by establishing design standards and regulations for reuse of structural sections, and creating functioning markets for re-useable sections. Select materials to minimize impacts: While designers are keen to select materials with minimum impacts, they do not have appropriate education or tools for the purpose. Standardization and simplification of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tools, and education of designers are identified as the main areas for improvement. The main recommendations are: i) standardize LCA tools; reduce the number of impact categories, make the categories understandable and incorporate uncertainty data and ii) establish programs for educating designers about materials selection tools. Alternative new materials: New materials with lesser impacts need to be explored. The main recommendations in this area are: i) conduct life cycle assessments of new materials to determine environmental credentials over their lifetime and

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Engineering Systems Division

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2004

Author dc:creator

• Chaturvedi, Swati, 1976-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• John A. Ochsendorf.

• Technology and Policy Program.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/17910

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/17910