Which Are the Most Environmentally Sustainable Building Materials | Dec 1st, 2020
It’s no surprise that traditional construction isn’t environmentally friendly. Conventional materials such as wood, drywall, asphalt, masonry, concrete, and metal lead to soil erosion, deforestation, and a significant amount of waste materials.
In 2018, the EPA estimated that construction, renovation, and demolition activities generated 600 million tons of debris. The building and construction industry is also responsible for 36 percent of energy usage and 39 percent of all carbon emissions in the world.
The global carbon footprint of construction includes not only the greenhouse gases emitted from the construction process, but also gases emitted during the lifetime of building materials. This aspect of a building’s carbon footprint has not received much notice in the past, but experts are paying greater attention to sustainable building options to curb the environmental impact of construction.
A shift to environmentally sustainable building materials will benefit both the environment and business’ bottom line. Luckily, there are numerous options for sustainable building design. Here are four materials to consider for eco-friendly and sustainable building design:
Sheep Wool Insulation by TheGreenEconomy
- Wool Insulation
Wool insulation comes from wool shorn off sheep. Often bonded together with recycled polyester fibers, the material is formed into batts, rolls, or ropes — depending on the construction need.
Wool is a sustainable and natural material that is easily renewable and biodegradable. It has natural flame-retardant properties, is effective at dampening noise, and can absorb harmful chemicals such as formaldehyde.
Wool also has an R-value of about 3.5 to 3.8, versus fiberglass which has an R-value of 2.9 to 3.8. The material can effectively insulate a building without relying on electricity, retain and release moisture without losing its thermal properties, and even improve indoor air quality by absorbing harmful gases such as nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide.
When processing shorn wool, care must be taken regarding insecticides, pesticides, and fungicides that may remain in the material. Transportation costs depend on how many companies manufacture the product near the desired construction location.
Rammed Earth : You won’t Believe How They Build This! by Matt Risinger
- Rammed Earth
Rammed earth provides natural flooring and is based on a traditional technique that is thousands of years old. Rammed earth construction uses local soil and a small mixture of binder materials.
Traditional flooring methods relied on plant materials or animal urine to bind the local soil; modern techniques leverage clay, chalk, gravel, silt, or sand as a binder. Builders sometimes use cement as a binder in modern structures, but the material is preferred less because it takes away from the natural aspect of rammed earth and often turns floors or foundations into dry-pack concrete.
Heavy power rams compress the materials into layers; after a layer forms, another layer gets added on top and compacted. The process of repeatedly compacting layers continues until there is a firm surface.
Rammed earth works extremely well as flooring, but it also works well for walls — as many ancient buildings around the world can prove. To make rammed earth walls, builders use formwork or temporary frames as an outer casing. Once the wall is solid and dry, the framework gets removed.
Rammed earth floors or walls are formed onsite. Because materials are often local to the site, transportation costs for rammed earth are much lower than they are for other building processes and materials.
A crew in southwestern Oregon hauls logs that will be used to manufacture mass timber.
AP PHOTO/GILLIAN FLACCUS
- Mass Timber
Mass timber is an innovative material that is considered superior to concrete and steel. The material is composed of various cuts of wood, such as large panels, posts, or beams. The wood gets glued together under pressure or nailed together in layers. Finished boards typically contain anywhere from three to seven layers, depending on the intended use and required strength.
Mass timber includes cross-laminated timber and glue-laminated timber:
- Cross-laminated timber is a lightweight, yet strong wood panel made of timber cuts set in perpendicular layers.
- Glue-laminated timber, or glulam, is made of multiple layers of solid wood bonded together with durable, moisture-resistant adhesives. The grains run parallel to ensure board edges remain staggered.
Mass timber is stronger, lighter, and perhaps just as fireproof as steel. The material is also more sustainable due to its efficient use of wood cuttings and promises to sequester carbon more effectively than traditional building materials.
Although the material shows real promise as a way to mitigate climate change and serve as a greener alternative to other building materials, care should be taken to ensure that the timber is harvested sustainably. Sustainable forest management is crucial to maintaining a healthy ecosystem and promoting a sustainable construction industry.
Mass timber is an off-site construction material. This cuts down on the time required to erect buildings and allows for quieter and more reliable construction.
Cork flooring by Flooring Clarity
- Cork
Cork comes from the buoyant outer bark tissue of the cork oak tree. The material is natural, renewable, and sustainable, as it does not destroy the living tree when harvested responsibly.
Most cork trees must reach the age of 15 to 20 years before bark harvesting can occur. Harvesting can occur as the tree bark regrows, with renewed harvesting every nine to ten years. Staggered harvesting is perhaps the most effective way to reliably obtain cork while protecting the trees’ health and ensuring sustainable resource management.
As a building material, cork is often used as flooring due to its cushioning and noise reduction properties. Cork is also ideal for insulation, countertops, wall paneling, floor underlayment, and exterior siding. The material also comes with several useful properties such as flame retardancy, water impermeability, and long-lasting durability.
Transportation costs and emissions from cork can be steep, however, since cork is native to the Mediterranean regions of Portugal, Spain, and North Africa.
Transition to Environmentally Sustainable Building Materials
Environmentally sustainable building materials promise to offer useful, greener alternatives to traditional building materials. Many sustainable building options are available world-wide, and other innovative materials are beginning to enter international markets.
At Miniwiz, we take pride in innovative solutions for upcycling materials and repurposing waste products. Visit our website for a look at how we put post-consumer waste back into the world and give it a renewed and carbon-reduced lifecycle.