Buildings have a large impact on their surrounding context but also on the larger scale which includes the resources and energy used to produce these buildings. All buildings create harmful emissions, where 18% of these are created indirectly by the materials (Araji & Shakour, 2013).
Sustainable design in the building industry is important due to the fact that 50% of the material which is taken from the earth is used within the building industry and from this over 50% is waste production. This large amount of material usage leads to the use of more energy consumption (Anink, et al., 1996). By not choosing the correct materials it can lead to harmful emissions, waste, noise, odour, water and air pollution. Therefore as designers, we all have a responsibility towards the choice of materials which we use within a design. This choice will affect the way we think when designing, the way we construct and use materials, it will affect the amount of waste, within the construction site but also the pre-production of the materials, and the quality of the environment within and around the building (Araji & Shakour, 2013).
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Buildings must be energy-efficient and use less fossil fuel (Woolley, 2006). The second principle is to choose materials and design a building in such a way that it allows the building to act passively, using the natural recourses such as the sun and natural ventilation to work effectively with the building. The building and the materials must always act in harmony with the context surrounding it. The waste of water must be limited and creating pollution must be avoided within the manufacturing and construction of the building (Woolley,