Sustainable construction lies at the heart of construction and design. A sustainable construction approach brings lasting environmental, social and economic benefits to a construction project. From that perspective, concrete achieves high valuable properties as a construction material limiting the impact of a building or infrastructure on its surroundings.
Sustainable construction has been identified as one of the Lead Markets by the European Commission. Therefore, the construction sector is committed to delivering higher quality buildings for European citizens and businesses alike, which will enhance quality of life and working conditions and reduce their impact on the environment. Assessing the sustainability of a project is a complex task. The key to success is to develop a “holistic view” that takes every aspect of the structure and its performance into consideration. For construction, for example, due to the very long service life of concrete structures, their in-use phase is far more important than the production and the disposal phases.
More detailed information can be found in the following publication: Sustainable benefits of concrete structures