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Focus Issues
A Sustainable Research Agenda for the
21st Century
by Harvey M. Bernstein
The explosive new demands of the Pacific
Rim and Latin America, along with the aging infrastructure of Western
Europe and North America, and the obsolete and decaying facilities of
the former Soviet Union require massive infrastructure investment.
World-wide, public demand for infrastructure is tempered, however, by
concerns about the environmental consequences of uncontrolled growth and
rapid expansion of built facilities. In short, societies in all regions
of the world face huge needs for infrastructure to support economic
growth and improved standards of living, but these societies do not want
growth at the expense of environmental quality. The notion that economic
growth and its associated infrastructure development can occur without
harming the environment is popularly referred to as Sustainable
Development.
As the engineering and construction industry prepares to meet the
challenges of the 21st century, it is finding that growing demand for
sustainable construction is resulting in remarkable changes to the way
the industry can do business. Consider, for instance, the experience of
the Southern California Gas Company which recently recycled its
38-year-old facility to create a state-of-the-art Energy Resource
Center. One-third of the existing building was demolished, the remainder
gutted, and a two-story central structure was added.
As a key element of this project, the company pursued an aggressive
recycling course. Sixty percent of the 550 tons of building material
removed from the existing building was reused or recycled. Eighty
percent of construction materials, interior furnishings, and displays in
the new building are either recycled or contain recycled materials. For
instance, weapons confiscated by Los Angeles County were melted down to
make reinforcing bars; recycled aircraft aluminum was reused as an
accent wall; and ground-up plastic pipe was used as a concrete
admixture.
By choosing to recycle rather than rebuild, the Southern California Gas
Company saved $3.2 million in land costs and utility infrastructure.
And, the building currently uses one-third less electricity than
conventional buildings of the same size.
Strategies such as this can help meet the demand for infrastructure
worldwide. That demand is huge, approaching $3 trillion annually. Viewed
from another perspective, the engineering and construction industry
represents between eight and 16 percent of the annual Gross Domestic
Product of most developed countries. Rapidly expanding and dynamic
economic growth regions of the world, typified by the Asia-Pacific
region and by Latin America, promise to dominate future design and
construction activity. The economies of developing regions are projected
to grow at average rates in excess of six percent annually over the next
decade, more than three times as fast as traditionally developed
regions.
Initiatives such as those undertaken by Southern California Gas Company
have excited the leadership of the engineering and construction
community because they point the way for meeting future infrastructure
needs in a sustainable manner, and provide an opportunity to rekindle
the entrepreneurial spirit which epitomized this industry at the
beginning of the 20th century. Industry leaders recognize, however, that
to achieve strong economic growth in a sustainable fashion will require
industry, governments, and nations throughout the world to work in
collaboration.
Beginning the Process
With this realization in mind, the engineering and construction industry
has set about to develop a global research agenda to make sustainable
development a reality. Throughout the world, engineers and constructors
of the built environment — planners, architects, engineers,
constructors, regulators, facility managers, and others who design and
build facilities — shape the way the world population uses physical
infrastructure to live, travel, work and play. As the economies of the
world continue to expand, these engineering and construction
professionals are challenged to develop the infrastructure in a way that
protects and conserves environmental quality and natural resources.
Undertaking future development in a sustainable manner represents a new
way of thinking in planning, designing, building, operating and
maintaining the built environment.
In early February 1996, over 700 design and construction industry
leaders from 35 countries attended the opening of the International
Research Symposium on Engineering and Construction for Sustainable
Development in the 21st Century organized by the Civil Engineering
Research Foundation. Leaders from the engineering and construction
community gathered from all regions of the world to forge a unique
international partnership in order to develop a global research agenda
to guide design, engineering, environmental and construction practices
essential to support the quality of life for a growing world population
and to meet the challenges of the 21st century. If successfully
implemented, this agenda will fundamentally change the direction of
global development for the betterment of mankind.
Global Research Agenda
The Symposium resulted in the development of a global research agenda
consisting of 38 specific proposals to help develop the concepts, tools
and methods needed for global sustainable development. Research
proposals were grouped into the following five industry categories
representing over $200 million in research for the next two to seven
years:
Management and Business Practices to develop new approaches to
management and business practices through advances in technology and
promotion of planning, education, communication and research.
Design Technology and Practices to focus on effecting informed decisions
about the functions, forms and uses of resources through improvements in
design procedure, methods, tools and global human capabilities.
Construction and Equipment to help the industry achieve an efficient and
sustainable construction and equipment industry; supporting all
participants in the engineering and construction process through
improved access to data, information, decision support tools and
automated operations.
Materials and Systems to foster change in sustainable development
practices in the materials, design and construction industry through the
use of high-performance materials and systems that improve function,
durability, and safety while minimizing life-cycle costs and
environmental impacts.
Public and Government Policy to achieve public and government policy
actions for sustainable design and construction practices to ensure that
appropriate investments are made in research and technology diffusion,
and in implementation of public-private partnerships through increased
involvement of engineering and construction professionals in public
debate.
Among the 38 prospectuses (or proposals), one project entitled
Developing the Discipline of Renewal Engineering draws upon the
experiences of Southern California Gas and addresses the need for the
incorporation of renewal design in all facets of facility construction,
renovation, rehabilitation, readaptation or ultimate demolition and
disposal to ensure optimum use of limited resources that will result in
waste minimization.
Another project entitled Developing a Decision Support System for
Eco-Construction calls for the development of a decision support system
that will have the ability to judge the sustainable efficiency of a
given constructed project. To achieve this requires the incorporation of
costs to the environment for the engineering and construction
enterprise, thus necessitating an increased consciousness and practical
knowledge of sustainability and the methods and systems for its
attainment. The impact on the design and construction industry in the
21st century will be new levels of responsibility and accountability in
the areas of safety, human health and ecological maintenance within the
limited natural resources available.
A number of the research proposals highlighted the potential for time
and cost savings from more efficient use of resources and materials,
resulting in productivity improvements for the benefit of owners and
operators.
One example of the impact to worker productivity and corporate savings
through renovation in a sustainable manner is the Main Post Office in
Reno, Nevada. This modern, noisy warehouse building with high ceilings
and black floors needed to be renovated and was selected to undergo a
"minimum energy user" renovation. The cost was approximately $300,000.
Several features of the renovation made a positive impact on the end
user: a lower ceiling was installed that made heating and cooling
easier, more affordable and created better acoustics; and the lighting
of working areas was enhanced by sloping the lower ceiling, which
enabled indirect lighting of working surfaces and replaced harsh direct
lighting.
In addition, benefits accrued from these modest, innovative renovations.
The energy and maintenance savings added up to $50,000 annually or a
payback on the cost of renovation in six years. Productivity increased
and stabilized at about six percent. And the rate of sorting errors by
machine operators dropped to one-tenth of one percent. These
productivity gains are worth $400,000 to $500,000, or a payback for the
entire renovation in less than a year.
This renovation typifies the benefits of and need for sustainable
innovation. Industry leaders, researchers and practitioners alike are
concerned about the lack of progress in making improvements to
engineering and construction practices. The industry should and must act
now to restore the development and implementation of technologies and
business and management practices that are essential to improvements in
our quality of life. With the implementation of a global research
agenda, supported by all sectors of the engineering and construction
community, improvements can be expected once the following steps are
taken:
Streamline the construction process by clarifying roles and
responsibilities and establishing and implementing life-cycle cost
models;
Design for sustainability through well-defined and broadly accepted
goals and use the vast amount of available data to advance building
practices;
Adopt new communication technologies to improve the productivity and
operating efficiency of the construction industry;
Recognize renewal alternatives and opportunities and give attention to
using appropriate building materials; and
Get public and government policy commitments to endorse the need for
long-lasting changes to the construction industry.
The Next Step
Collaboration is the key to the engineering and construction industry's
success in the next century. We must work together to build on one
another's strengths. The industry must be innovative, since innovation
through collaboration benefits us all, in the short and long term. If we
work together, we can advance our industry and our profession globally.
Part of the solution to the challenge of sustaining innovations as we
move into the 21st century must be to bring all participants together at
the table: industry, academia and government leaders, owners and users,
technologists, financiers, and the many others who have a role in
achieving design and construction innovation. The primary aim is not so
much to increase these groups' efforts as to encourage a common
direction.
To accomplish this, we must build partnerships to work together on the
cutting edge of the industry toward a global, sustainable agenda.
Partnerships provide the ability to take advantage of the newest design
and construction technologies and techniques. At the same time, partners
share the risks and rewards of developing, promoting and enjoying the
benefits of innovation.
As an industry we must build public awareness of what sustainable
development is and why it is so valuable. As we move into the next
century, we will find that environmental and social considerations,
still viewed largely as constraints on many segments of the design and
construction industry, will increasingly be built into the process as
real costs of production or components of services delivered. The global
research agenda developed through consensus building and collaboration
at this one symposium clearly shows that sustainability is affordable
and achievable. The next step is up to all of us. Without sticking our
necks out collectively, we will never fully realize our potential.
Harvey M. Bernstein is President of the Civil Engineering Research
Foundation (CERF), and coauthor of the book Solving the Innovation
Puzzle: Challenges Facing the U.S. Design and Construction Industry.
© Copyright 2004. All rights reserved.
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