Investigating the Usage of Green Concrete in Construction Industry: Step Towards Sustainable Development

STUDENT NAME - - Assignment 2
07 September 2016 1

STUDENT NAME - - Assignment 2
Investigating the Usage of Green Concrete in Construction Industry: Step Towards Sustainable
Development
By ‘Author Name’
Affiliation (MSc Profile or Track) & Study no
Abstract
The adoption of green buildings and green construction is essential in the current scenario to tackle
environmental challenges such as over exploitation of natural resources, pollution, scarcity of raw
materials,etc. Green concrete is an emerging concept which provides an effective route to the
construction industry to achieve sustainability goals. The research report is going to reviewthe uses of
green concrete in the construction industry. The main aim of this report is to review existing literature
in order to investigate applications of different types of green concrete such as geopolymer concrete,
fly ash concrete, etc. Another aim of this report is to discuss how the construction industry can ensure
sustainable development with the utilization of green concrete. The key findings of this research paper
showed that the usage of green concrete like ultra-high-performance concrete, lightweight concrete,
geopolymer concrete, and fly ash concrete provides a variety of environmental benefits such as
reducing greenhouse gases emission, conservation of natural resources, reducing landfill costs and
efficient energy conservation. This study is highly significant as it highlights the uses of four types of
green concrete along with some challenges associated with them. The identified future work will
contribute to the 100% implementation of green concrete in the construction industry and the
achievement of sustainable development.
1.Introduction
Nowadays the construction industry becomes a massive producer of waste and a major consumer of
non-renewable resources as the demand for buildings increases due to rapid growth in population and
industrialization. In the current scenario, construction industry encounters various challenges such as
perpetually increasing demand for concrete, depletion of fossil fuels, growing environmental concerns
related to climate change and scarcity of raw materials (Imbabi, Carrigan and McKenna, 2012). Kamar
and Hamid (2011) found that approximately 30-40% of natural resources were depleted by the
construction industry in developed countries. Moreover, the production of Portland cement (main
constitute of concrete) releases a huge amount of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, carbon
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STUDENT NAME - - Assignment 2
monoxide, etc. (Doye, 2017) states that one ton of carbon dioxide has been released during the
production of one ton of Portland cement. However, the production of construction material has an
adverse effect on the environment. There is a need to identify, select and utilize alternatives of existing
construction materials which consume less embodied energy as compared to the conventional
construction materials (E.S., 2015). The climate change impact of buildings development
(construction) can be reduced with the use of plant-based construction materials. Many practitioners
and researchers have taken initiative to reduce the emission of CO2 (Carbon dioxide) with the
replacement of concrete and cement by other supplementary materials like green concrete (Shivam and
Arshan, 2017). Fine aggregate, cement, and coarse aggregates are main components of concrete which
can be replaced by green concrete which constitutes sludge ash, waste glass, demolished bricks, sludge
powder, silica fume, quarry dust, etc. Green concrete offers an effective way to improve the durability
of concrete and reduce environmental pollution under severe conditions. The usage of green concrete
provides a variety of environmental benefits such as reducing green house gases emission, conservation
of natural resources, reducing landfill costs and efficient energy conservation. It promotes innovative
and sustainable use of unconventional alternative materials and waste materials in concrete
(Sandanasamy, Govindarajane, and Sundararajan, 2011). However, the construction industry can
achieve sustainability goals by reusing the waste material to produce green concrete.
The main purpose of this research paper is to investigate the utilization of green concrete in the
construction industry. The literature review is focusing on different forms of green concrete such as
ultra-high-performance concrete, lightweight concrete, geopolymer concrete and fly ash concrete which
provides a route to sustainability for the construction industry. In this research paper, various literature
related to green concrete has been reviewed in order to identify existing research gap and outline future
research scope.
2.Literature Review
Sustainability can be defined as the minimum use of resources and energy, reducing pollution and
waste generation as a byproduct of construction. However, Architects, Engineers, and
Environmentalists are finding new ways for sustainable buildings for maximizing energy efficiency and
reducing the Green House Gases (GHG). Liew, Sojobi, and Zhang (2017) state that the construction
industry can achieve sustainability goals by utilizing green concrete in construction. There are several
forms of green concrete such as ultra-high-performance concrete, lightweight concrete, geopolymer
concrete, and fly ash concrete. The findings of this study stated that green concrete offers various
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