What is Sustainability?

          Sustainability may be defined as meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. By consuming fossil fuels and other nonrenewable resources, by building in sprawling urban patterns that cover extensive areas of prime agricultural land, by using wood from forests that are not replanted, by allowing topsoil to be eroded by wind and water, and by generating substances that pollute water, soil, and air, we have been building in a manner that will make it increasingly difficult for our children and grandchildren to meet their needs for buildings and healthy lives.

          On the other hand, if we reduce building energy usage and utilize sunlight and wind as energy sources for our buildings, we avoid depletion of fossil fuels. If we reuse existing buildings imaginatively and arrange our new buildings in compact patterns on land of marginal value, we minimize the waste of valuable land. If we harvest wood from forests that are managed in such a way that they can supply wood at a sustained level for the foreseeable future, we maintain wood construction as a viable option for centuries to come. If we protect soil and water through sound design and construction practices, we retain these irreplaceable resources for our successors. If we systematically reduce or eliminate the various forms of pollution emitted in the processes of producing and operating buildings, we keep the environment clean in perpetuity. It is often possible to do these things without increasing the monetary costs of constructing and operating buildings, and in some cases actually to reduce these costs.

          Realization to these goals is dependent on our awareness of the environmental problems created by building activities, knowledge of how to avoid these problems, and skill in designing and constructing buildings that harness this knowledge. Sustainable design and construction, also called "green" building, is steadily becoming the goal of more and more building owners, architectural and engineering firms, contractors, and building operators, among them some of the largest organizations in each field.

          Sustainability must be addressed on a life-cycle basis, from the origins of the materials for a building, through the manufacture and installation of these materials and their useful lifetime in the building, to their eventual disposal when the building's life is ended.

Considerations of sustainability:
       in Site Work, Excavations, and Foundations
       in Brick Masonry Construction