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| BENEFITS OF WOOD - GREEN BUILDING |
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| 2) Minimizing External Pollution and
Environmental Damage |
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In evaluating the environmental impact of building design, the impact on the quality of air, water and soil must be taken into consideration. This includes not only minimizing waste products from the building, such as wastewater, solid wastes and chemicals, but also minimizing the pollution caused by the manufacture of the materials used in the building.
It is difficult, however, for designers to determine whether the materials they choose cause air or water pollution during their extraction, manufacture and transportation to the site as these occur away from the project. Designers may be aware that concrete manufacture creates CO2 emissions and that steel manufacture results in toxic chemicals being released into the water, but are not aware of a means to evaluate these effects. Life cycle analysis is an emerging science that evaluates and allows designers to compare the effect that materials have on the environment over their lifetime.
In Canada, the ATHENA™ Sustainable Materials Institute has developed databases and a computer program to evaluate the environmental impacts of whole buildings and building assemblies. In the US, the federal government has funded the first phase of a project, led by the ATHENA™ Sustainable Materials Institute, to develop a life-cyle inventory for a range of materials including building materials and products. The second phase of the project is now getting underway.
ATHENA™'s life-cycle research proved what designers knew intuitively, and what has been demonstrated in comparable work in Europe: when it comes to minimizing external pollution of air, water or soil, wood far surpasses other materials. The research demonstrated that using wood results in:
- lower greenhouse gas emissions than steel or concrete
- lower air pollution than steel or concrete
- lower water pollution than steel or concrete
- lower solid waste by-products than steel or concrete
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The next section, A Life Cycle Approach to Building Design, provides further expla-nation about life cycle analysis and how wood building products have the lowest environmental impact when compared to other major building materials.
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