ESPCI web site
Guillaume Habert
Professor of Sustainable Construction
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, ETH Zurich
Earth and fibres to heal the world
Regenerative materials for sustainable construction
Cement and steel industries account for 10% to 15% of greenhouse gas emissions linked to human activities. As it seems impossible to build without concrete, these emissions are considered necessary and unavoidable, and have to be offset by complex, costly and, for the time being, still very much in their infancy technologies to capture CO2 from the air and store it in the ground.
Yet there are alternatives strategies to decarbonize construction. It is possible to build climate-friendly buildings using existing technologies that can be implemented on a massive scale. Earth, bio-based and reused materials are a solution of choice. These local materials, available right under our feet, can store carbon and fight climate change. They improve rather than degrade indoor air quality. They take care of the building’s inhabitants and users, nurture the living World and change the economic model by better integrating local players. However, the way they are currently implemented makes them uncompetitive on the market.
In this seminar, I will present the work carried out at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, on initiatives to improve the performance of these materials using mineral and organic additives, and on the development of indicators and evaluation methods to quantify the limits and benefits of these materials throughout their life cycle.