Construction Equipment Owner

Today marks the first ever World Green Building Day. The declaration was made by the World Green Building Council in an effort to bring together green building councils from around the world. In honor of the day, I put together a list of a few “building green with concrete” links for you to peruse:

• The U.S. Green Building Council
• The Portland Cement Association’s (PCA) ConcreteThinker.com
• Green buildings case studies from the Portland Cement Association (PCA)
• The Sustainability page from the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association (NRMCA)

And here are some articles from the pages of Concrete Contractor that look at building green with concrete:

• “Pervious Concrete: How to Place and Cure”
• “The Cincinnati Zoo Focuses on Improving Its Environmental Impact”
• “Go White to Go Green”
• “Going Green in the Residential Market”
• “Taking a ‘LEED’ in Wisconsin”
• “Making Greener Choices”

 Concrete’s contributions to sustainable construction are many — pervious concrete, insulated walls, low-albedo values, supplementary cementicious materials (SMCs), recycling opportunities, and more – but many people continue to focus on concrete’s negative affects on the environment, namely carbon dioxide emissions from cement production. The industry has been working on sustainable manufacturing and increasing the use of cement substitutes like fly ash and slag, which lessen the amount of cement needed in concrete production. And scientists have recently found another cement substitute that’s carbon neutral — rice husks. The Discover Channel reports that rice husk ash could replace up to 20 percent of the cement in a concrete mix.

The concrete industry is a fast-paced market. I see a lot of new products and technologies come across my desk and computer every day. With our many active industry associations, progressive-thinking contractors and manufacturers generating new ideas, it can be hard to keep up on everthing that’s new out there, let alone get that information beyond our industry to architects, designers and the public. That’s why I was excited to see an interivew with Hycrete President David Rosenberg on FoxBusiness.com. Rosenberg discussed his company’s waterproof concrete system and stimulus plan opportunities for the concrete industry.

We’ve been stuck in a bit of a cold snap here in Wisconsin — a nice time to kick back on the couch under a blanket with a warm cup of tea for some easy reading. “Easy reading” for me no longer means a steady diet of knitting magazines and Tony Hillerman novels, but instead topics like pervious concrete and sustainable construction. A few great reads I’ve recently taken in include two white papers from L.M. Scofield — “How Concrete Contributes to Today’s Green Designs” and “Design and Construction of Pervious Concrete Pavements.” If you’ve got a little time and want to increase your knowledge base on either of these topics, I encourage you to take a look at these publications.

“Green building” is a popular buzz phrase these days, but does anyone really know what it means? I think of it as a broad term, encompassing many different definitions depending on the context in which it’s used. Generally it refers to a building process that lessens the impact construction can have on the environment. For instance, it may mean designing a building to maximize daylighting to reduce electricity needs; or it may mean choosing sustainable flooring materials such as bamboo or cork in place of hardwoods; or it may simply mean recycling construction materials to minimize the amount of waste that ends up in a landfill at the end of a project.

Much of green building focuses on reducing energy use or choosing recycled or sustainable materials. Another definition of “green building” can refer to it’s affect on the people who live and work in those buildings or attend school in them. The PCA’s most recent Concrete Homes Newsletter highlights the KC Health Home – a house built with indoor air quality in mind. The builders used an efficient HVAC system and chose products with low toxicity levels to help keep air pollutants in the home at a minimum. As consumers become more and more educated about the buildings they work and live in, builders will need to meet their requests with structures that incorporate energy efficiency, indoor air quality and use of recycled materials more and more. As a business owner, it’s in your best interest to stay informed of these trends and technologies and know how you can implement these requests on future projects.

Over the last several months I’ve seen an increasing interest in concrete polishing throughout the industry. Contractors have been processing and polishing concrete for many years, but with polishing’s low-maintenance and “green” benefits, its popularity has exploded. Many of the contractors I spoke to or have written about lately are involved in concrete polishing and want to learn more, like Beyond Concrete and CSolutions/Middle Georgia Concrete Constructors, or are looking to get into this growing niche. One helpful resource I recently learned about is the Concrete Processing Technical Institute, an educational resource that offers training and accreditation in concrete polishing. Other polishing training resources include Bob Harris’s Decorative Concrete Institute and the manufacturers who sell grinding and polishing equipment. You can also learn more about concrete polishing in this overview of concrete processing or this story about concrete and LEED certification.