Key Features:

No of Chapters: 5
No of Pages: 65

Buy Now

Abstract:

The major purpose of this study was to determine the need for environmentally friendly materials for building construction. The population of the study consisted mostly of big constriction firms in Anambra State that have had more than five years of active construction experience the sample for the study was 10 reputable construction firms which were drawn using simple random sampling. Four research questions and two hypotheses were formulated, which guided the study. A 30-item structured questionnaire was developed for data collection.

Frequency count/percentages and weighted mean (likert scale) were used to answer the research questions, which chi-square was used to test the hypothesis at 0.05 level of significance. It was concluded among others that environmentally unfriendly building materials have serious negative impacts on the environment. Which needs urgent attention in other to save the environment from global warming and other negative effects. Based on the findings and conclusions drawn from the study recommendations were made for Anambra State government to take legislation that will help for effective use of environmental friendly material for building construction in Anambra State.

Introduction:

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
In recent years more and more attention is being paid to the environmental impacts of building materials. The constantly increasing cost of energy and raw materials force the construction industry to think about alternatives such as renewable energy sources and raw materials and the reduction of waste.
Climate change and environmental pressures are major drivers for the promotion of environmentally friendly materials.

Furthermore, this trend is spreading fast and the international document stating the intent of being more environmentally friendly as presented. The Kyoto protocol, the energy performance of building directive of the EU, Energy Efficiency Directive. In line with the desire for environmentally friendly materials, some government have changed their legislation setting targets for the sustainability of public and residential buildings. On the other hand, statistics show that an important factor for the well-being of the inhabitants is the choice of building materials, “unhealthy” materials cannot only cause environmental problems but can equally cause asthma and cancer, and therefore it is extremely important to choose low emitting building materials. We spend most of our time indoors and building materials influence the “health” and safety of the indoor environment.

The building industry in Anambra state is rapidly changing-new building materials are all the time emerging on the market and new construction techniques are being developed and more and more challenging designs are being developed to be built it in the expectation that the next building generation will be of low energy and sustainable building materials. The first step towards environmental friendly construction is the appropriate choice of building materials. This is a challenging task and which this research intends to investigate to ascertain the environmental impacts of the chosen materials before the design and construction phases.