Carbon footprint assessment of the construction materials: challenges and future towards achieving better low-carbon nation

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, has been adopted by all United Nation members state since 2015. Under the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, 4 goals mainly no.7 Affordable and Clean Energy, no. 9 Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, no.11 Sustainable Cities and Communities, and also no.13 Climate Action has been the focus towards improving the present construction industry and becoming a better country in reducing the carbon, pollutions and energy been released to the atmosphere in the current global warming scenario. The increasing of carbon emissions in our atmosphere has becoming an environmental issue due to climate change and global warming. The effect of all this additional carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is that the global temperature of the planet is increasing, including global warming, leading to unpredictable daily climate changes such as floods, hurricanes, heatwaves, and droughts. Global warming is the primary concern in terms of environmental impact on the climate and geography of our planet. CO2 is responsible for the increase in temperature and much research has been done on how we can reduce the effect of CO2 on the environment. The construction industry is one of the biggest carbon emitter’s activities in the world. The amount of carbon emission is higher compared to transportation and industry. In fact, buildings are responsible for more than one-third of total energy consumption and related to GHGs emission in society, in both developed and developing countries. The global demand for energy from buildings and the construction of buildings is still increasing through improved energy accessibility in developing countries, expanded acquisition and utilisation of energy-using devices and the fast growth of the global floor area of buildings, which is now almost 3%. Viewing the CO2 emissions, it is mainly contributed by the construction process, materials and equipment. This shall become future construction player main concern in construction of high rise green residential building. Hence, in order to minimize the increased in carbon emissions from constructions of the building, several studies have identified some of the effective carbon assessment tools for construction projects such as the Inventory of Carbon & Energy (ICE) has been developed in the UK, but yet it is still lack of implementation and been used in most of the country

Rethinking bamboo: an Asian eco-Interior design language with ecological branding in East Asia

This article takes a look and survey of the approaches in interior design possibilities and expressions in applying the use and particular structural qualities of bamboo. This particular material has gained much interest due to its quality of being rapidly replenishable, thus allowing it as an alternative to more depleting resources such as timber and other materials. The paper focuses on the higher applications of bamboo and the recent corporate space design and its typological function gain from the application of bamboo as an interior design strategy and aesthetics. With the move by the United Nation on having 17th initiatives under Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), this study will discuss further how bamboo could be improving the quality of life in the countries with the tropical climate where bamboo vastly grown and reliable as one sustainable material in construction of structure outdoor, indoor and also to be used widely in arts & craftsmanship in the region

Mass concentration of airborne particulates in selected museums at Kuala Lumpur and Perak

Indoor pollutants gives harmful effects to human health and became the main cause of the cultural heritage deterioration. The research is focuses on the airborne particulates at the indoor of the museum galleries. Equipment used to sample inhalable dust was the 7-hole sampler and the Cyclone sampler for sample respirable dust. The results show that mass concentrations at selected location were exceeding the limit of safety Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) and Malaysia standard limit for TSP and PM10 in 8 hours sampling. Thus, it is important to control the level of contaminants within the buildings for safety purposes

Rethinking Bamboo: An Asian Eco-Interior Design Language with Ecological Branding in East Asia

This article takes a look and survey of the approaches in interior design possibilities and expressions in applying the use and particular structural qualities of bamboo. This particular material has gained much interest due to its quality of being rapidly replenishable, thus allowing it as an alternative to more depleting resources such as timber and other materials. The paper focuses on the higher applications of bamboo and the recent corporate space design and its typological function gain from the application of bamboo as an interior design strategy and aesthetics. With the move by the United Nation on having 17th initiatives under Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs), this study will discuss further how bamboo could be improving the quality of life in the countries with the tropical climate where bamboo vastly grown and reliable as one sustainable material in construction of structure outdoor, indoor and also to be used widely in arts & craftsmanship in the region

Collection and physical characterization of airborne particulates.

Airborne particulates are one of the most complex air pollutants and considerable concern surrounds their environmental impact especially with regards to human health. An investigation of the efficiency of various total inhalable and respirable dust samplers has been conducted to identify the most convenient way of collecting dust particles to examine their physical characteristics. The efficiency of a variety of dust samplers were investigated using limestone dust clouds generated inside an environmental dust chamber. Various sampling periods were employed to establish dust concentrations in the environmental dust chamber. The experimental dust cloud was found to contain on average 55.74 % of respirable dust as defined by different instruments while a consistent dust concentration of approx 200 mg/m3 was repeatedly produced. The methods for collecting and estimating airborne asbestos fibre concentrations were studied and found to be extremely limited. Standard optical techniques grossly underestimated both airborne fibre concentrations and respirable dimensions of fibres. The size and dimensions of respirable asbestos fibres are defined by their ability to gain access to the lungs and there is no instrument or technique available at present, which will allow collection and estimation of respirable fibrous dust clouds. A comparison of coal dust particles with similar particles retained in the lungs has shown a difference from the predicted respirable fractions as proposed by the British Medical Research Council (BMRC) and other conventions. Respirable dust sampling instruments may therefore be under sampling larger particles. The difficulty in estimating the characteristics of airborne particulate material has been demonstrated by illustrating urban particulate collection and analysis. The extremely large differences in terms of physical size, and aerodynamic properties of dust particles formed by different materials have been demonstrated