Carbon footprint assessment of the construction materials: challenges and future towards achieving better low-carbon nation

• Main Author: Mohd. Din, Shamzani Affendy
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English; English
• Published: 2020
• Subjects: TA170 Environmental engineering. Sustainable engineering; TA401 Materials of engineering and construction; TD169 Environmental protection; TH Building construction
• Online Access: http://irep.iium.edu.my/84369/1/KEYNOTE%20ICCAPC%202020%20invitation%20letter.pdf; http://irep.iium.edu.my/84369/2/KEYNOTE%20ICCAPC%202020%20presentation.pdf; http://irep.iium.edu.my/84369/

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, has been adopted by all United Nation members state since 2015. Under the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, 4 goals mainly no.7 Affordable and Clean Energy, no. 9 Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, no.11 Sustainable Cities and Communities, and also no.13 Climate Action has been the focus towards improving the present construction industry and becoming a better country in reducing the carbon, pollutions and energy been released to the atmosphere in the current global warming scenario. The increasing of carbon emissions in our atmosphere has becoming an environmental issue due to climate change and global warming. The effect of all this additional carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is that the global temperature of the planet is increasing, including global warming, leading to unpredictable daily climate changes such as floods, hurricanes, heatwaves, and droughts. Global warming is the primary concern in terms of environmental impact on the climate and geography of our planet. CO2 is responsible for the increase in temperature and much research has been done on how we can reduce the effect of CO2 on the environment. The construction industry is one of the biggest carbon emitter’s activities in the world. The amount of carbon emission is higher compared to transportation and industry. In fact, buildings are responsible for more than one-third of total energy consumption and related to GHGs emission in society, in both developed and developing countries. The global demand for energy from buildings and the construction of buildings is still increasing through improved energy accessibility in developing countries, expanded acquisition and utilisation of energy-using devices and the fast growth of the global floor area of buildings, which is now almost 3%. Viewing the CO2 emissions, it is mainly contributed by the construction process, materials and equipment. This shall become future construction player main concern in construction of high rise green residential building. Hence, in order to minimize the increased in carbon emissions from constructions of the building, several studies have identified some of the effective carbon assessment tools for construction projects such as the Inventory of Carbon & Energy (ICE) has been developed in the UK, but yet it is still lack of implementation and been used in most of the country.