Concrete Sustainability Framework

Joel Galupo OPON (26165115)

Doctoral Student, Graduate School of Engineering, Hokkaido University
(Kita 13, Nishi 8, Sapporo, Hokkaido, 060-8628, Japan)
E-mail: joel.g.opon@eng.hokudai.ac.jp

Sustainability as a concept, describes the interplay between environmental, economic and social aspects,
is in itself difficult to quantify holistically. In concrete production in particular, there is a growing
number of indicators proposed in the literature measuring these aspects with a recognizable degree of
variability. Certain sustainability requirements might also be preferred over others, for instance between
cost and carbon dioxide (CO2) emission reduction, because of the difficulty of evaluating them at the
design phase. Thus, the need for a framework that would aide in the description of the relevant indicators
for a required degree of sustainability and material performance in concrete production is inevitable.
This is attained by introducing concepts to measure concrete sustainability namely: Materials,
Performance, Carbon, Energy, Emissions and Pollution, Policy and, Innovation. A technique justifying
the time dependency of sustainability by factoring performance requirements in the form of resistance
and, the accumulation of deteriorating actions over a lifetime of a material and structure is presented by
using probabilistic laws. It is therefore recognizable that concrete sustainability and durability is a
coupled concept.
Key Words: Concrete, Sustainable concrete, Durability, Sustainability framework

1. INTRODUCTION manipulated to be sustainable, but the question

Concrete industry is a very wide-ranging economy,
it has no recognizable spatial boundary, and with
stakeholders from almost all facets of the society.
Concrete as a material is consumed globally at a rate
second only to water (Sakai & Noguchi, 2013)1)
which in turn imposes threats to the environment
and humanity in general, because of the
complicated cost of its production, however despite
these effects the volume of concrete used annually
is expected to increase due to the prolific use of the
material in developing nations to build new
infrastructure both inland and offshore to fuel their
growing economy.
The relative harmful impacts of concrete compared
to other construction material is small, however, due
to high consumption and production, the total
environmental impact is still significant: large
consumption of natural resources (mineral
resources for cement and concrete and fossil fuels),
large emissions of greenhouse gasses, primarily
CO2 from cement production, and large amount of
generated waste (Marinkovic, et al., 2017)2).
The dilemma introduced between the
environmental implications and the use of the
material has led to the creation of several industry-
wide safeguards to ensure a responsible production,
with some encompassing regional and even
international applications. Other countries
introduce policy, specifications and material
certifications to guarantee that concrete is used
sustainably in structures. The material itself can be
remains: What is sustainable concrete?
2. SUSTAINABLE CONCRETE
FRAMEWORK
The inherent concrete’s sustainability credentials
and performance can be regarded as a representation
of the material’s short- and long-term benefits. It is
important to justify that for concrete, during the
material development and/or production process,
sustainability of material should be given special
consideration over a long expected service life,
since the concrete structure’s required lifetime
normalizes the environmental impact over long life
span (Müller, et al., 2014)3). Based on this context
both the performance over the lifetime and its
environmental impacts determines the sustainability
potential of the building material, by which Müller,
et al. (2014)3) proposed some basic approaches to
sustainable use of concrete: (1) the optimization of
the composition of the concrete in view of its
environmental impact while maintaining an equal or
better performance and lifetime; (2) the
improvement of the concrete’s performance at equal
environmental impact and lifetime; (3) the
optimization of the lifetime of the building material
and the building structures at equal environmental
impact and performance.
In practice, it is often the norm to describe
sustainability in is three globally recognized
dimensions: environment, economy and society,
and more importantly the use of key performance
indicators to measure describe the state and trend of

1
the system. In concrete, as a material development
process, the identification and development of
sustainability indicators is a trial and error process,
which is often guided by norms and material
performance design requirements. The indicators
themselves provide a degree of complexity and
because of this, a multifaceted framework is needed
in order to represent both their quantitative and
qualitative nature which describe their
multidimensional behavior. Thus, in this context, it
is proposed that the concepts of (a) Materials, (b)
Performance, (c) Carbon, (d) Energy, (e) Emission
and Pollution, (f) Policy and, (g) Innovation, which
holistically characterize sustainable concrete.
Figure 1 represents this framework.
Figure 1. Framework for sustainable concrete.
3. PERFORMANCE AND LIFETIME
Strong arguments can be found in the several
publications suggesting that sustainability is
attained with strict regard on the performance of
concrete as material and as structural element (e.g.,
reinforced concrete). Performance is considered as
a lifetime functionality of the material that imbues
serviceability, safety, and maintenance, which are
direct expression of the social form of sustainability.
In addition to changing concrete materials and mix
designs to reduce the Portland cement clinker
component of concrete, making durable concrete
structures has a larger impact on improving
sustainability since times to rehabilitation and
replacement can be extended (Hooton & Bickley,
2014)4).
Sustainability therefore is a time-dependent
function in terms of performance, and a simple
model describing this approach is through the use of
probabilistic model is described in this section. As
discussed by Muller, et al. (2014)3) the increasing
damage with time, here denoted as S, and the
resistance, R, with time can be modeled with
appropriate deterioration time laws. Deterioration
due to carbonation and the subsequent carbonation
induced corrosion are just few examples, which
strongly affect the lifetime of concrete structures. In
the following figure, over the lifetime of structures
(normally designed as 50yrs), the margin of safety
can be regarded as the difference between R and S
(Figure 2 top). However, due to the accumulative
nature of deterioration process, the action S is likely
to increase with time (Figure 2 bottom). It is also
recognized that both R and S values can behave as
probabilistic projections from the design stages,
thus as time progresses the values of these
parameters may differ from what is predicted, with
an assumed normal probability distribution of
variability. Here, the failure probability is described
as the overlap area of the probability distribution
curves between R and S. This overlap should be at
or beyond the designed lifetime in order justify the
use of sustainable concrete in structures.
Figure 2. Action S and resistance R in view of the
durability of concrete members (Muller, et al., 2014)3).
4. CONCLUSION
The sustainability of concrete can be described
through the use of a multifaceted framework which
recognized the multidimensional behavior of
indicators. It is also time-dependent and
performance in terms of durability is one of the
indicators that strongly suggests concrete
sustainability.
REFERENCES
1) Sakai, K., and Noguchi, T., 2013. The sustainable use
of concrete. CRC Press Taylor & Francis Group, USA.
2) Marinkovic, S., Dragas, J., Ignjatovic, I., and Tosic,
N., 2016. Environmental assessment of green concretes
for structural use. Journal of Cleaner Production 154,
633-649.
3) Müller, H., Haist, M., and Vogel, M., 2014.
Assessment of the sustainability potential of concrete and
concrete structures considering their environmental
impact, performance and lifetime. Construction and
Building Materials 67, 321-337.
4) Hooton, R.D., and Bickley, J., 2014. Design for
durability: The key to improving concrete sustainability.
Construction and Building Materials 67, 422-430.