RoofKrete

Sustainability

Sustainability is the capacity to endure. In ecology the word describes how biological systems remain diverse and productive over time.  Living more sustainably can take many forms, for example; reorganising living conditions (such as eco-villages and sustainable cities), reappraising economic sectors (green buildings and sustainable agriculture) or work practices (sustainable architecture), using science to develop new green technologies, or even making adjustments in individual lifestyles.

In 2007 climate scientists concluded that there was at least a 90% probability that the atmospheric increase in carbon dioxide was human induced, mostly as a result of fossil fuel emission. Now the need to reduce greenhouse gases is fundamental to everyone. In building materials, durability is a key component of sustainability.

Krete Sustain Systems Ltd. believes that the construction industry has an unique opportunity to positively impact climate change and offers a range of products which combine sustainability with performance and affordability

Basic principles of sustainability in buildings:

• reduce use of fossil fuels and synthetic chemicals (no petrochemical products)
• use products which are durable
• use products with low embodied energy
• use local products (reduce the enormous embodied energy of transport)
• use materials which can be recycled
• beware of "greenwash" — where manufacturers make misleading claims (e.g.  advertise a green roof system with soil and plants on top of a very high embodied energy PVC or TPO petrochemical based product
• true test of sustainability - for a product to be really sustainable it must have an initial low embodied energy (energy to factory gate)
• be manufactured locally to avoid massive transport embodied energy penalties
• be durable and last the lifetime of the building.

Why does the building industry make such frequent use of single ply PVC and single ply TPO membranes---which all have to be imported into the UK? Single ply materials use large amounts of energy and produce toxic waste during manufacture. They are almost impossible to recycle when the roof needs to be replaced after 15-20 years. In future, architects and designers will have to consider the embodied energy in all building components and add on the additional embodied energy of transporting the building materials and the energy to recycle the product at the end of its life-cycle

Sustainability of petrochemical products: single ply PVC, single ply TPO, bitumen, mastic asphalt, and liquid waterproofing - are all made from petrochemicals. Professor Susan Roaf (Green Building Bible, Volume 1) states that Britain will run out of its own supplies of oil by 2020, and we and the rest of Europe will be dependent upon oil from less stable regions of the world.

In "The Ecology of Building Materials", Bjorn Berge states that the world oil supplies will run out in 41 years, and that it is common sense to substitute materials made from crude oil with materials which are not in danger of exhaustion.