An approach for the assessment of sustainability of construction materials

The authors have contributed to the definition of sustainability by considering environmental economic and social issues and encouraging their use in order to preserve resources for the next generation. Construction materials play an important role in creating sustainability since construction industry use 50% of our global resources (Edwards and Hyett, 2001) and we have to take into account the needs of the next generation. Overall, in examining and understanding the construction material life-cycle it is vital to consider the environmental, economic and social issues throughout the life-cycle of the construction material to create sustainability and the author has adopted a specific definition and, in this thesis, the phrase sustainable construction materials means materials that have the minimum impact on environmental, economic and social matters through the life-cycle of the materials. At present there is no suitable method to assess sustainability in construction materials. Existing methods evaluate each pillars of sustainability alone, each using a different methodology, each having and using a different approach, each having different goals. Leaving out one dimension would make vulnerable the commonly goal of sustainability. The aim is to develop a decision support system in which the full potential of sustainability is considered, enabling the construction profession to make an inclusive, accurate informed decision when selecting construction materials. This study takes city of Arriyadh in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as a case study to assess the sustainability in block type construction materials.