Sustainable Development

In the lecture 2, we were instructed by Dr. Mohd. Faris Khamidi with the title ‘Sustainable Development Issues and Built Environment’.

Dr. Faris started his lecture with a quote from Mahatma Gandhi—‘When there is LOVE, there is LIFE.’ According to him, a built environment can change the environment if we understanding the sustainable environment.

But, what is the meaning of ‘sustainable development’?

The definition of ‘sustainable development’ is the development that can just fulfill the human needs. It is important in protect the natural environment so that the natural resource and environment can be enjoyed by the future generation.

Sustainable development has divided into 4 category:

1. Environmental sustainability

According to Wikipedia, environmental sustainability is defined as the ability of the environment to continue to function properly indefinitely. This involves meeting the present needs of humans without endangering the welfare of future generations. The goal of environmental sustainability is to minimize environmental degradation, and to halt and reverse the processes they lead to.

2. Economic sustainability

3. Social sustainability

4. Political sustainability.

These 4 categories relate to each other, where this can be shown in the graph below :

From above,

~ Socio-economic is between economic growth and social progress.

~ Eco-efficiency is between economic growth and environmental stewardship.

~ Socio-environmental between environmental stewardship and social progress.

To obtain sustainable development in a built environment, many issues should be considered, such as energy issue, water conservation, design issue, materials and systems issue and water management. From what I know, energy consumption of building and construction is shown below:

~other industries – 62.7%

~production of materials for construction – 10.9%

~operation of building – 10.2%

~operation of business facilities – 9.9%

~transportation related to construction – 5.0%

~construction work – 1.3%

However, there are some challenges ahead in the built environment, which is URBANIZATION. Urbanization means that there are more and more people in a city, where more people means more houses, shops, work-places, roads etc. The demand on the products and services will be increased, and thus increase the demand for land. By the way, if there are more people, then there will be more cities existed, and there are more impact to the environment. Hence, new Ideas, new paradigms, new approaches to building and construction are URGENTLY needed.

Therefore, there is a new house system being introduced, i.e. Dry-Masonry Brick House System (DBHS) as an ‘Adaptable Building’ model. According to Dr. Faris, DBHS is an example of “adaptable building” model, where it is a building system that is worth to be emulated for sustainable housing scheme among developing countries.

From the lecture, I know that during construction of DBHS experimental house in Kumamoto Pref., 98.34% of bricks used in the construction can be reused and the rest 1.66% of the bricks can be RECYCLED. Other parts of the house like steel bolts, nuts and plates can 100% be RECYCLED caused they can be easily recovered and separated.

This means that, DBHS has promotes the concept of 3R, which is reduce-reuse-recycle. Adapting DBHS is relevant and important in the developing countries throughout Asian region, as almost all countries here regard brick as the main building material.

Last but not least, the environment in our mother earth is getting worse from time to time. We should take action and protect the environment immediately before it is too late.