Department of Civil Engineering

U18CE702C

Sustainable Materials and Green Buildings

Dr. A. Suchith Reddy (CE2)

 U18CE702C Sustainable Materials and Green Buildings

Course Learning Objectives (LOs):

This course will develop students’ knowledge in /on
LO1: concepts of sustainability and governing principles
LO2:green and sustainable building materials
LO3:energy and carbon reduction in buildings
LO4:building performance towards sustainability

Course Learning Outcomes (Cos):

Upon completion of this course, the student will be able to…
CO1: infer the significance of sustainability in construction engineering
CO2: appraise and select sustainable building materials
CO3: interpret the energy and carbon reduction strategies
CO4: rate and propose sustainable building
Major International standards

The major international standards certification to help guide organisations in

building integrated systems to meet certification requirements:

•ISO 45001:2018 Occupational Health & Safety Management

•ISO 14001:2015 Environmental Management
•ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management
•ISO 55000:2014 Asset Management
•ISO 50001:2019 Energy Management  
•OSHA 1910.119 Process Safety Management
•Seveso III Directive - 2012/18/UE Process Safety Management
This International Standard is one in a suite of International Standards dealing with
sustainability in building construction that includes the following:
 a) ISO 15392 Sustainability in building construction — General principles;
 b) ISO 21932 Buildings and constructed assets — Sustainability in building
construction — Terminology;
 c) ISO/TS 21929-1 Sustainability in building construction — Sustainability
indicators — Part 1: Framework for development of indicators for buildings;
 d) ISO 21930 Sustainability in building construction — Environmental
declaration of building products;
 e) ISO/TS 21931-1 Sustainability in building construction — Framework for
methods of assessment for environmental performance of construction works —
Part 1: Buildings.
Unlike the International Standards listed in a), b), c) and e)
ISO 21930 (this International Standard) deals only with environmental impacts and aspects and excludes
consideration of the social and economic aspects of sustainability. The relationship among the International
Standards is elaborated in below Figure
Designers of buildings, manufacturers of building products, users of buildings, owners
of buildings and others active in the building and construction sector are increasingly
demanding information that enables them to make decisions to address environmental
impacts of buildings and other construction works. These demands are currently
being addressed only through various national initiatives applying a variety of
approaches.
It is essential that there be uniformity in the means of expressing environmental product
declarations. This includes having a consistent way of arriving at the declaration that is
based on basic life-cycle inventory data. The user expects non-biased information,
which is expected be consistent with the best current practice and understanding over
the lifetime of the standard.
According to the set of four International Standards dealing with environmental
labelling, (ISO 14020, ISO 14021, ISO 14024 and ISO 14025), environmental labels
and declarations are divided into three principal types:
 — General principles: ISO 14020;
 — Self-declared environmental claims, type II environmental labelling (ISO 14021);
 — Principles and procedures of environmental labels and declarations, types I and
III environmental labelling (ISO 14024 and ISO 14025).
Other relevant references
 ISO 6707-1, Building and civil engineering — Vocabulary — Part 1: General terms
 ISO 14001, Environmental management systems — Requirements with guidance for use
 ISO 14020:2000, Environmental labels and declarations — General principles
 ISO 14025:2006, Environmental labels and declarations — Type III environmental
declarations — Principles and procedures
 ISO 14040, Environmental management — Life cycle assessment — Principles and
framework
 ISO 14044:2006, Environmental management — Life cycle assessment — Requirements
and guidelines
 ISO 14050, Environmental management — Vocabulary
 ISO 15392, Sustainability in building construction — General principles
 ISO 15686-1, Buildings and constructed assets — Service life planning — Part 1: General
principles
 ISO 15686-8, Buildings and constructed assets — Service life planning — Part 8:
Reference service life and service-life estimation
 ISO/TS 21931-1, Sustainability in building construction — Framework for methods of
assessment for environmental performance of construction works — Part 1: Buildings
 Environmental Product Declaration

What EPD stands for

An Environmental Product Declaration, or EPD, is a document which transparently

communicates the environmental performance or impact of any product or material over its
lifetime.
Within the construction industry, EPDs support carbon emission reduction by making it
possible to compare the impacts of different materials and products in order to select the most
sustainable option.
•Architects, engineers and designers are able to choose the most sustainable option for their
project.
•Manufacturers are able to optimise the impact of their products and market their carbon
transparency.

An EPD is usually valid for five years, and is generated according to the relevant standards.
Construction EPDs are based on the ISO 14040/14044, ISO 14025, EN 15804 or ISO 21930
standards.
EPDs help to achieve EPD and LCA credits in the following certification schemes: LEED, 
BREEAM and others.
What Type Of Information Will You Get With EPD?

1.You will be able to get relevant data as well as information on the environmental impact
of every material and product that came across the life cycle of a product that you wish to
sell.

2.You will be able to improve the transparency when it comes to reporting issues on health,
environment, safety, durability, and other requirements that you wish to implement.

3.You will be able to get third party verification on the data that you have compiled by
following specific rules, regulations as well as international standards.

4.You can get a basis for continuous improvements, which means that manufacturers will;
publish EPD so that they can demonstrate the product's integrity concerning environmental
regulations and performance that requires consistent growth.

5.You will get an opportunity to develop everything based on your future goals.

6.You will get the entire life cycle assessment so that you can improve your profits in the
long run.
 Environmental Product Declaration

ISO 21930:2017 provides the principles, specifications and

requirements to develop an environmental product declaration (EPD)
for construction products and services, construction elements and
integrated technical systems used in any type of construction works.

ISO 21930:2017 complements ISO 14025 by providing specific

requirements for the EPD of construction products and services.

It establishes a core set of requirements to be considered as core product

category rules (PCR) to develop an EPD for any construction product or
service.
In addition, this document, as the core PCR document for construction
products, construction elements and integrated technical systems:

a) includes the rules for calculating the life cycle inventory analysis (LCI), the
predetermined environmental indicators and the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA)
results that are reported in the EPD;
b) describes which life cycle stages are considered in a particular type of EPD,
which processes are to be included in the life cycle stages and how the stages are
subdivided into information modules;
c) defines rules for the development of scenarios;
d) includes the rules for reporting relevant environmental and technical information
that are not covered by LCA;
e) defines the core elements to be included in an EPD;
f) establishes the structure of a project report;
g) defines the conditions under which construction products can be compared, based
on the information provided by an EPD;
h) provides requirements and guidelines on PCR for sub-categories of construction
products;
 Business benefits of EPDs

1.Save Money in a Long Run

With more light energy and resource usage and costs, manufacturers can use
this particular process so that they can improve the energy and resource
consumption across the value chain, which will help them, position better and
find alternative strategies to improve overall profit.
This particular process will help you position yourself to alternative strategies
as well as options that will help you reduce the exposure to adverse trends.

2.Meet Customer Requirements

At the same time, when you have corporate or individual clients, you should
have in mind that building social sustainability and responsibility for targets
and objectives will help you improve the customer requirements in the long
run.
Finally, by publishing environment declaration, you will be able to report the
continuous improvement, which will be the basis for communication with
future clients.
3.Ensure That Products Are Safe For Environment
If you publish EPD for products that you use, you will be able to ensure that all
data that you have been using is representative, timely, and accurate.
Reporting data in EPD will contribute to creating an utterly accurate framework
that will help you calculate the environmental impacts of things that you do
within your industry.

4.Increase Recognition
When you create a company, having an environmental declaration will help you
boost the global ratings and gain recognition among clients and potential
customers. Therefore, you will provide an incentive to design teams to
incorporate products with EPD and not another way around.

5.Prepare For Changing Market Needs

Creating and building by using sustainable materials reached popularity in the
last few years, and even though you will be able to improve your business by
lowering operation costs, you will also be able to enhance productivity in
general.
 How EPDs help you meet the needs

1. Help clients to comply with embodied carbon legislation

Life-cycle carbon limits for new buildings will soon be mandatory in a number of countries,
including France, Finland as part of its low-carbon construction roadmap, and the UK under
the new London Plan.

Whole life carbon includes the embodied carbon impacts arising from the extraction,
manufacture and transportation of construction materials, as well as the building’s operational
energy needs.
For clients like developers, designers, specifiers or builders – this means they will need to
calculate the lifetime impact of every element of their project, from foundation to facade, via a
building life-cycle assessment.

As a result, they are likely to prioritise product suppliers who can disclose the environmental
footprint of their materials or components via a credible means: enter the EPD.

Widely recognised and respected, EPDs are the perfect means to demonstrate regulatory
compliance.
2. Help your clients to gain accreditation for green building certifications and
schemes

Around 70 % of international and European green building standards offer credits for
the use of construction materials covered by an EPD. So whether your clients need to
gain accreditation for LEED, BREEAM, DGNB, the Living Building Challenge or
many others, they will prioritise products with EPDs.

For many of these schemes, the use of products with EPDs is enough to gain credits,
there is no carbon performance target for the products themselves.
 3. Help your clients to choose low carbon products

Of the clients who are not working towards a specific certification or need to comply
with embodied carbon legislation, many will still be motivated by a desire to be able to
choose low carbon products and to demonstrate carbon transparency in their projects.

According to recent customer research by Saint-Gobain, 76% of construction product

clients want suppliers to be transparent about the environmental impacts of their
products. An EPD can facilitate this.

By developing an EPD, you will ensure that your product features in construction sector
environmental databases and LCA platforms, such as One Click LCA, so will be seen by
clients looking for carbon-transparent products and materials. Without an EPD, you are
effectively stepping away from an important ‘shop window’ and making it harder for
potential clients to find and choose your product over others on the market.
4. You need to stand out in a crowded marketplace

An EPD demonstrates commitment to sustainability

Investing in an EPD makes it clear to your clients and the wider world that you are not
only committed to meeting your clients’ needs – but also committed to sustainability,
to measuring and reporting your impact.
Once you have your EPD it can play an important role in your marketing, particularly
if low-carbon solutions are central to your core offer. For many clients and investors,
your carbon footprint or Global Warming Potential (GWP) will be the main
information they seek, so should be clearly outlined.
 5. An EPD benchmarks your performance

How does your product compare to your competitors in terms of environmental

impact? How do your process improvements affect your environmental impact?

Without an EPD it can be hard to answer these questions. At the heart of developing
an EPD, is the process of measuring your own environmental performance via a
product LCA. This allows you to see areas of particularly high or low impact within
your own product as well as how you compare to your competitors. Your
benchmarking allows you to showcase areas where your product excels and will leave
you better prepared to meet growing market demands for product sustainability.
6. Cutting carbon will cut costs

Where there is carbon, there is cost. So identifying and reducing the carbon-heavy aspects
of your process could lower production costs, particularly in an industry increasingly
exposed to carbon requirements.
An LCA allows you to see a comprehensive inventory of all the components and
substances used in your product. For many manufacturers, this is the first time such data is
gathered in one place. Gathering such data can highlight the choices you have, as well as
supporting communication with the rest of your business and supply chain.
7. Future-proofing your product development

New rules and requirements are coming into force all the time. By identifying where
and how to reduce your impact, you are ready to meet changing sustainability
requirements – putting low-carbon and eco-design principles at the heart of future
R&D and innovation.