Developed Sustainable Scoring System for Structural Materials Evaluation

Structural materials are fundamental to application in construction, and the process of selecting these materials can be considered one of the keys to sustainable construction development. Making structures sustainable is a major challenge because of serious environmental impacts, limitation of natural resources, and socioeconomic issues. However, there is a lack of information on the aspect of sustainability related to construction, which is one of the largest users of energy, material resources, and water, and is responsible for a very significant portion of pollution by harmful and damaging emissions and wastes. Comprehensive review of sustainable materials in the construction industry is carried out to identify the sustainable criteria related to the structural materials based on life-cycle thinking. This criterion is utilized to develop a sustainable scoring system (SSS), which is intended to be a reasonable way to assess the structural material sustainability from extraction to demolition and linked to the design of the structural element. This system consists of three major items: phases of material total life, developed list of 10 sustainable factors including their relevant indicators, and a material sustainable measurement scale (MSMS). DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0000412. (C) 2012 American Society of Civil Engineers.