Best Practices in Construction Industry for GHG Emissions Reduction

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Construction industry is one of the significant industries in Canada. The low interest rates in Canada fuelled the demand of housing, which brings the Canadian construction industry with a CAGR of 2% between 2008 and 2012 (Companies and Markets, 2013). The fact is that building construction has a considerable effect on the environment. It is a major consumer of raw materials, land and energy, as well as generates a mass of Greenhouse gas and other pollution (USA EPA, 2008). According to the data from Statistics Canada (2012), the construction sector produced 2.1% of total Canadian industrial sector’s GHG emissions in 2008. The purpose of this project is to convince the construction companies in Waterloo region to adapt feasible best practices for GHG emission reduction during construction process. Therefore, guidance for GHG emissions calculation and best practices should be determined firstly. Before promoting those best practices to the construction companies in Waterloo, proper guidance of GHG emissions calculation should be provided firstly in order to help them calculate their GHG emissions and determine their problems. Considering this issue, some protocols can be used, which include inventory, toolsets and guidance for GHG emissions calculation (Matthews, Hendrickson & Weber, 2008). Best practices are defined as methods or technique that are consistently verified to be superior to other means, and can sometimes be used for benchmarking (Business Dictionary, 2012). The proposed best practices for construction industries should be cost-efficient and feasible and accord to construction life cycle. As indicated by lots of literatures, construction life cycle should be divided into manufacture and transportation of building mate... ... middle of paper ... ...erature review has indicated that there is a research gap in applying best practices to construction companies in Waterloo Region. M5 group will work with MMM Consulting Company from January to April in 2014 to find out how this gap can be filled. The expected research would be based on the opinions of construction companies in Waterloo Region on conducting best practices to make better environment performance. By determining those companies who are willing to be better in environment performance, further research would be conducted to find out if those best practices are feasible and achievable by providing proper emission calculation and best practices guidance. The purpose of this research is to promote those feasible and cost-effective best practices to construction companies in Waterloo Region in order to help them achieve their goal of reducing GHG emission.

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