These sustainable construction industry innovations do not only aim to lessen the workload of engineers and workers on the site. As the world is leaning to a sustainable and greener future, start-up companies and research groups are exerting efforts to produce high-caliber and relevant innovations to help lessen the impact of climate change.
It is important for construction leaders to bear in mind that the industry is not solely about being able to construct strong buildings. More than cost-efficiency, environmental impact should not be taken for granted. It’s time for them to step up and follow the footsteps of the people behind these sustainable construction industry innovations.
Self-healing concrete
One of the major problems that should be addressed using sustainable construction industry innovations is cement cracking. Not only that it’s costly, but replacing cement over and over is also one of the major contributors of harmful carbon emissions, which shares about 7 percent of the world’s total emissions. Fortunately, a group of researchers at Bath University are currently looking into the possibility of introducing a self-healing concrete in the market. When water is poured, the bacteria in the concrete mix will germinate, producing limestone that will clog the cracks. This will prevent oxygen from entering, avoiding the steel reinforcement from corroding.
Kinetic Roads
This will be probably one of the sustainable construction industry innovations that companies or world leaders should invest be investing if they would like to maximize going green. Kinetic roads allow the conversion of the kinetic energy produced by braking vehicles into electricity which is then transferred to the national electric grid. This innovation will save a lot of power resources and will probably aid in lessening the effects of climate change. This technology called Lybra is being developed by Underground Power, an Italian start-up, in cooperation with the Polytechnic University of Milan.
Modular Construction
Modular construction is one of the sustainable construction industry innovations that construction companies and contractors should invest especially in highly urbanized areas where construction can disrupt daily activities. In this method, the parts of the building are constructed in a different site and then assembled on the location where its supposed to be built. It is cost-efficient as there will be no need to transfer materials and equipment on-site, thus producing very little waste. Aside from that, it lessens environmental impact and very sustainable as contractors do not need to disturb natural activities for a long time around the area during the construction process. Broad Sustainable building, a Chinese developer, has recently completed a skyscraper which is 57-story high in 19 working days through this method.
Kinetic Footfall
This technology developed by Pavagen will undeniably fall in the list of the sustainable construction industry innovations as it can also be one of the solutions to the increasing energy demands. It actually sounds like the Kinetic Roads technology except for the fact that energy from human footsteps is what is collected and converted into electrical energy. This can be possible through the use of electromagnetic induction process and flywheel energy storage. It will be ideally attached to places where there is high human traffic like transport hubs. An example of this was installed in a football pitch in Rio de Janeiro which helped harness energy to power the floodlights around the pitch.
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