A framework to select suitable sustainable materials for high-rise buildings in Sri Lanka

High-rise buildings consume massive amount of resources with significant carbon footprint that creates detrimental impacts on the society, economy, and environment. Careful selection of sustainable materials is regarded as crucial to achieve sustainability in high-rise building construction. While the importance of sustainable construction materials is widely acknowledged, there is lack of research to facilitate the selection of sustainable materials in high-rise buildings of Sri Lanka. This gap highlights the necessity to develop an approach for the sustainable material selection in Sri Lankan construction industry. Hence, this research aims to develop a framework that can facilitate sustainable material selection for high-rise building projects in Sri Lanka. This research adopted a mixed-method approach. 10 semi-structured interviews and 51 questionnaires formed the data collection techniques within the case study and survey strategies respectively. As such the research developed a validated framework with 22 sustainable materials to select the most suitable alternative material for the key elements of high-rise buildings against each selection criteria. The elements included in the framework were walls, floors, partitions, insulation, finishes, doors and windows, whereas the selection criteria were cost-effectiveness, functionality, performance, strength, local availability, waste management, durability, and energy-efficiency.