Radical change is needed
Unfortunately, the building sector is still in the early stages of playing an active role in climate protection. The goals are clear to us
- Build without producing hazardous waste
- to get by without fossil energy
- Build and operate emission-free buildings
and yet the building industry produces far too much CO2 and contributes massively to global warming. Architects and engineers alone will not fix it. Manufacturers, suppliers and construction processes must adapt to this challenge, the rules of the game in construction must be completely rethought for a better future.
Today we know that the supporting structure of a building generates about 50 percent of the CO2 of the construction industry, so here the structural engineers are challenged to plan other forms of construction with other materials and we would have "tackled" about half of the problem.
The world does not have an energy problem either, because the sun radiates 10,000 times more energy onto the earth than we need in total. So we have an efficiency problem in the use of solar energy, because we use solar energy too little and not nearly well enough.
The buildings of the future will also have to look different. The use of recycled building materials is an example of this. In the USA, for example, there is a manufacturer who produces thermal insulation panels from old jeans, i.e. insulation with 80% recycled content, and that is excellent. If we want to provide enough building materials in the future, this is only possible if the highest possible recycling rate is taken into account in planning and construction. If we don't do that, then with the current understanding of resource conservation we will be living in about 150 cubic metres of hazardous waste and who wants that?
