A Discussion on the Advantages of Steel Structures in the Context of Sustainable Construction

Abstract

The various studies were revealed that the environmental impacts such as global warming, the depletion of natural resources, waste generation and pollution etc. increase day by day due to rapidly increasing population of the world which creates a large number of building and construction demand. As a resource-intensive industry, construction industry puts enormous pressure on natural resources and constitutes an important part in all these environmental effects which have badly influences on natural balance, human health and survival. There occur various environmental impacts in construction, operation, maintenance and even at the end of life cycle of buildings. From this point of view, to reduce the environmental impacts of buildings, sustainability and sustainable construction concepts get importance. It is important to select environmentally friendly building material to implement principles and methodologies of sustainable construction. Steel is the unique structural component which has almost a closed-loop material cycling and can be reprocessed without quality losses. This study discusses the advantages of steel structures in the context of sustainable construction. This paper provides an overview on sustainable construction term and its common criteria and focuses on the advantages of steel structures and examines steel structures through the life cycle stages according to the sustainability criteria.