Research Objective: Environmental Impacts of Buildings

Intent: to quantify the impacts of buildings on the environment throughout their life cycle, and to minimise these impacts.

Projects

Project: Environmental Burdens from Buildings

This project is developing environmental Life Cycle Impact (LCI) data on common building materials. The data will be used in the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of selected buildings to balance the financial cost with the environmental impact of such buildings. Work to date has included cement, concrete, timber, and steel. Work in the current year will cover aluminium and composite wood-boards, and production of a final report.

Project: BRANZ Green Office Scheme

A qualitative office -building environmental-impact assessment tool is being developed that is appropriate for use under New Zealand conditions. Factors to be considered include energy use, lighting, water use, waste treatment, location/transport, materials of construction, and air quality. Trials of the draft scheme on three office buildings will be completed and the methodology published.

Project: Urban Sustainability

The issue of sustainable development is gathering momentum in New Zealand, as noted in the Government policies and strategies outlined in the introduction. The building and construction sector is the key to delivering on these strategies. The initial stages of this project will identify urban sustainability issues, and identify and evaluate information to address these issues. It will then move to research specific issues for which there are no current New Zealand solutions.

Other projects in the environmental impacts of buildings area include:

• reduction of construction industry wastes
• climate change and the New Zealand built environment
• recycling of waste-stream polymers into building materials
• forced carbonation of cement-based materials with super-critical
• carbon dioxide.