CAREER: Re-engineering of Construction Processes and Education for Sustainable Development

University Of California-Berkeley, Berkeley CA

Investigators

Abstract

0094022: Re-engineering of Construction Processes and Education for Sustainable Development. This reserch focuses on sustainable construction and entails developing models and methods for defining and quantifying the environmental effects of specific construction processes (excavation, cast-in-place concrete, structural steel erection, structural wood, and demolition). The impacts will be traced through the related life-cycles and supply chains for material and energy inputs, water comsumption, wastewater generation, hazardous and non-hazardous waste generation, heavy metal discharges, and greenhouse gas as well as particulate matter emissions. Standardized life-cycle assessment methods will be coupled with existing construction process models. This information augmented with private and social cost estimates of the impacts will serve to identify environmentally preferable or improved construction processes. The broader implications of the research are the promise of global environmental improvements in construction, one of the largest and most important sectors or the US economy. The research plan complements an innovative education plan involving explicit integration of research results into existing courses and professional education, case studies, a role-playing game, workshops and seminars for private sector partners, special institutional undergraduate and minority-owned construction business programs and high school.