Environmental Impact Assessment

Phase 1 Contextualization of the Environmental Impact

Assessment

Delivered by:
Johanna Milena Contreras Roa

Code:
1093747364

Group: 358032-18

Submitted to:
Maria Fernanda Dominguez

National Open and Distance University UNAD

School of Agricultural, Livestock and Environmental Sciences
ECAPMA
Environmental Engineering Program
September 2020
 “Sustainable construction—The role of environmental
assessment tolos

Today, sustainable construction is one of the greatest challenges to be

faced, since we must seek ways to avoid generating greater impacts on
the environment and above all to make efficient use of energy and
water; this can be achieved through ecological designs and the use of
resources and materials that are not harmful to the environment. For
this purpose, different methods of environmental evaluation of buildings
have been developed. These methods have developed separate
indicators or benchmarks to monitor specific aspects of the building's
environmental performance such as air quality and indoor comfort
depending on the country where it applies.
BREEAM was the first method used to carry out the environmental
assessment of buildings, the purpose of which is to establish a list of
environmental criteria against which the building's performance is
verified and evaluated. BREEAM is one of the most used methods in the
world but it also has some shortcomings. This method is constantly
updated and expanded in order to alert the importance of environmental
problems in the structure being analyzed which may already be finished
or in the design stage.
To date there are a number of methods of environmental assessment for
buildings, each country can design the method it wants to implement
based on those who want to evaluate, the main objective of these
methods is to improve the quality of design and therefore minimize their
environmental impact. Most of these methods are private, others are
created by the collaboration of several countries, but their purpose is
the same, which is to achieve high environmental standards in their
constructions and thus advance towards the protection of the
environment and above all the achievement of the objective of
sustainability.
On the other hand, although the construction industry tries to move
forward by looking for environmental solutions in its buildings, very little
progress has been made to date. Therefore, a first step would be to re-
evaluate the environmental evaluation methods, since they have many
limitations that minimize their effectiveness at the time of
implementation.
Although these methods can be applied at any stage of project
development or when the project has already been completed, it is not
recommended since it would generate extra costs and the restructuring
would be slow. Therefore, the environmental evaluation is more efficient
during the identification and preparation stages of a building project.
This would generate an important achievement in the fulfillment of the
objectives of sustainable development, it would also generate a balance
between environmental issues and financial considerations because it is
not feasible that even if a project is environmentally successful, at the
time of its construction it could generate cost overruns; and this is
another flaw that in some methods such as BREEAM counts for them the
financial item should be included within the environmental impact
evaluation.
Other aspects such as complexity, quantitative and qualitative
evaluation, weighting and scales of measurement are also not well
defined in some methods, and in others there are shortcomings in their
structure. Although each environmental evaluation method created has
the power to include them or not, I believe that they are important
aspects and should be present in each evaluation since they will give us
more visibility when it comes to evaluating a building project and above
all to verifying whether it will be sustainable or not.
All these changes must be developed with sustainability in mind and in
compliance with its four principles, which will result in the sustainability
analysis of a building being acceptable and this in turn can help in the
decision making process regarding the development of the project from
the feasibility stage. The construction is one of the biggest sectors that
contaminate the environment as well as the sector that uses the most
environmental resources. For this reason, a balance must be created
between the ecological, social and economic growth of the society in the
long term, and to achieve this, the methods of environmental evaluation
must begin to be restructured in order to comply with the established
objectives and thus create environmentally sustainable constructions.
Bibliografia
Ding, G. (2008). Sustainable construction—The role of environmental
assessment tools. Revista ELSEVIER, pág. 451. Recuperado
de https://www-sciencedirect-
com.bibliotecavirtual.unad.edu.co/science/article/pii/S03014797060042
70#aep-section-id126