sustainability Quantity Surveyor
The link between and the Sustainability
remains a current topic, and specifically for the construction industry, which is a strong contributor to unsustainable practices. Unfortunately, construction is here to stay, being a major contributor to BC’s economic growth. In BC, the construction sector constitutes 7% of our GDP and provides one in ten jobs, and has been one of the province’s fastest-growing sectors in the last ten years. Besides retail and commercial development, there is also the continued housing demand fueled by foreign investment and migration. Government fully understands the importance of the construction sector in our economy, and supports it with ongoing infrastructure work, most notably the Evergreen
16 | CONSTRUCTION ECONOMIST | www.ciqs.org | Summer 2016
Line in Coquitlam, seismic upgrades of schools and new construction of government facilities. However, an undeniable, often forgotten fact of the industry is that construction is responsible for the extensive use of energy and resulting carbon emissions in the construction phase, as well as in the operational and maintenance phases. There is also embodied carbon in the production of building materials and components – through raw material extraction, transport, manufacture and assembly. The construction sector accounted for 10% of BC’s energy demand, and 11.4% of the province’s total carbon dioxide (C02) emissions in 2009, according to a 2011 report commissioned by the Canadian Industry Program for Energy
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