Climate change is no longer just an “Inconvenient Truth” but a living reality as we witness daily disasters caused by global warming. Violent storms, heavy snowfalls and unbearable heatwaves, hurricanes and cyclones, flash floods, rampant wildfires and drought are all evidence of climate change wreaking havoc on people and property.
Our homes and buildings should provide refuge and reduce our vulnerability to such disasters – mitigating risks, enhancing safety and sustainability, and future-proof
our built environment to face the storms ahead.
Leading composite materials manufacturer Eva-Last looks at why and how to build and beautify our built environment for our purposes without destroying the natural one.
THE INCONVENIENT TRUTH – WHY SHOULD WE CARE?
The imperative for building resilience – defined as increasing our capacity to cope, adapt or recover from disasters – and to construct resilient structures considering climate change challenges is now hotter than ever. According to some estimates, investing in more resilient infrastructure could save a whopping $4.2 trillion from climate change damages! 1
A recent report by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) recorded an average of 361 extreme weather disasters per year between 2000 – 2019, with approximately 91 million people affected by natural disasters in 2019 alone. 2 (A Practical Guide to Climate-resilient Buildings & Communities)
Projections predict that by 2050 over 1.6 billion urban dwellers will regularly be exposed to extreme temperatures, while over 800 million coastal residents in 570 cities will be vulnerable to rising sea-levels and coastal flooding. 3
Various factors affect our resilience to climate change disasters including the design and location of houses or buildings. These should be carefully considered in context against the relevant risk/s of rising sea-levels, increasing or decreasing temperature extremes, strong winds, heavy snowfall, or the possibility of floods or unprecedented precipitation to implement an appropriate solution.
Part Of The Problem Or Part Of The Solution?
The building and construction industry is responsible for around 38% of global energy-related CO2 emissions causing the triple planetary crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, waste and pollution. 4
Not only must the sector urgently halt, reverse or minimise any detrimental impacts on the natural environment to limit global warming to below 2°C, it must do so whilst also simultaneously providing resilient structures responsive to the imminent challenges of climate change. There is no Planet B.
Historically, much of the construction sector’s progress has been centred around reducing our buildings’ ‘operational’ CO2 emissions from HVAC and lighting. Meanwhile, efforts to mitigate the ‘embodied’ carbon emissions from traditional building materials – cement, steel and aluminium – have lagged.
UNEP’s ground-breaking report “Building Materials and the Climate: Constructing a New Future” 5 highlights the pressing need to decarbonise building materials.
It recommends three overarching principles to decarbonise materials:
1. Avoiding unnecessary extraction and production,
2. Shifting to regenerative materials, and
3. Improving the decarbonisation of traditional materials.
2. Shifting to regenerative materials, and
3. Improving the decarbonisation of traditional materials.
Eva-Last have elected to be part of the solution.
The company is on an Earth Mission to provide sustainable building materials that won’t cost the earth.
Their advanced composite building materials are manufactured from resource-efficient and renewable bamboo fibres (which aid carbon sequestration) combined with recycled plastic polymers (which reduce plastic waste and pollution).
Bamboo polymer composites (BPC’s) outperform traditional timber, providing superior durability able to withstand extreme weather, whilst preventing deforestation (and concomitant biodiversity loss). With a guaranteed lifespans of decades, there’s no unnecessary replacement meaning no unnecessary production, and your structure will weather any storm!
A decision in 2017 to move towards alternate energy solutions, resulted in 32 858 solar panels, or 88 716 m2 of solar panels, having been installed on the factory roof, providing solar energy instead of burning fossil fuels to power some of the manufacturing processes, preventing harmful carbon emissions.
Eva-Last is committed to sustainable building materials. Their composite materials, made from renewable bamboo fibres and recycled plastics, outperform traditional timber and reduce deforestation and plastic waste. With a lifespan of decades, these materials are manufactured using solar energy, further reducing its impact on the environment.
Choosing eco-friendly materials like those from Eva-Last, we can build resilience against climate change and safeguard our environment for future generations.
