Sustainability

The sustainability of a building in terms of its material usage, construction, occupation and end of life is becoming a more important consideration. This is being driven by the world’s desire to provide a better quality of life for people and protect the needs of future generations. Despite this intention, the scope and implications of sustainability are not yet widely understood. Here we set out to explain the key principles of sustainability for construction and the main frameworks to consider in developing a sustainable specification in terms of material choice and building design. Corus examples have been used with the frameworks to illustrate how they would be used in practice, however, these can work equally well with other materials and project solutions.