Construction projects can improve social welfare, well-being and quality of life.

Sadly, however, construction is not an environmental-friendly process by nature.

Construction activities irreversibly transform valuable lands such as farmland and
forests into physical assets such as buildings, roads, dams or other civil
infrastructure. Habitat loss, degradation, and fragmentation are some of the most
direct impacts of such transformation.

Habitat is the place where an organism lives and finds food, water, cover, and
space to grow and reproduce. Each organism has evolved to be adapted to a
particular kind of habitat. Habitat destruction is the most significant driver of
ecosystem damage, biodiversity loss, and species extinction and comes about because
of a variety of human activities. Agricultural land is often lost through the
activities of quarrying and mining for the raw materials used in construction; it
is lost when agricultural land is converted to other uses, whether for
urbanisation, for roadbuilding, dams or other civil engineering projects; and it
may also be degraded as a result of the local pollution or waste generation
associated with construction and building materials production.

"the construction consumes about 50% of the steel production and each year over 3
billion tonnes of raw materials are used to make steel for constructing buildings."

Construction similarly contributes to the loss of forests and wildlands by their

conversion to other uses; it contributes to the loss of forests by the
unsustainable use of forests for building timber, bamboo and other raw materials
for construction; by the use of timber to provide energy for building materials
production; and indirectly by the atmospheric and water pollution consequences of
the construction and building materials production activities.Habitat destruction
and degradation contribute to the endangerment of species. This loss is critical
because species diversity in an ecosystem is vital for survival. If one species
disappears, another species can fill its niche if there is a large enough pool of
candidates.

When forests and grasslands are replaced by rooftops and roads, the water-retaining
function of the soil is cut off, and the flow of water is radically changed.
Development causes fundamental changes to the water (or hydrological) cycle, the
water movement pattern on, above, and below the earth's surface through processes
such as evaporation, precipitation and infiltration.

The first effects occur once vegetation is removed from the landscape. Removing
vegetation decreases the amount of precipitation that returns to the atmosphere
through evaporation from the earth's surface and transpiration from plant surfaces
(together called evapotranspiration). In developed areas, not only is the amount of
vegetation diminished, sometimes significantly or even entirely, but impervious
surfaces such as pavements, roads and rooftops increase, and the amount of water
that runs off the surface of the land increases. Thus, resulting in floods.

Water that runs off impervious surfaces, mostly paving, picks up pollutants
including oil, antifreeze, and pesticides. The pollutants become concentrated
without access to plants and soils that could remove suspended particles, break
down petroleum, and sequester metals and pesticides. This contaminated water then
moves into pipes with its pollutant load and empties into streams. Excess plant
nutrients in water cause a process called eutrophication, which occurs as plant
nutrients accumulate in a water body, causing increasingly heavier growths of
plants and algae and reducing the amount of oxygen in the water available for fish
and other animals. As eutrophication progresses, water bodies can experience algal
scums and blooms, cloudy and discoloured water, strong odours, and fish kills.
There are many ways in which the nature of current construction activity can be
changed to make it less environmentally damaging, without reducing the useful
output of construction.

Where we build involves locating development in a region or land area. It includes:

Safeguarding sensitive areas such as riparian buffers, wetlands, prime agricultural

land, and critical habitat from development pressures.

Directing new development to infill, brownfield, and greyfield sites to take

advantage of existing urban infrastructure and reserve green space.

Reusing existing buildings, including interior and exterior materials, to reduce

the energy use and environmental impacts associated with producing new building
materials.

How we build includes:

Developing more compactly to preserve open spaces and water quality.

Increasing the density of development or redevelopment to help minimise opening up

new greenfield sites, preserve existing habitat and natural resources, and minimise
the use of private modes of transportation.

Mixing uses to reduce travel distances.

Designing communities and streets to promote walking and biking.