来源：《新科学家》
原文见刊日期：2022年2月12日
What we build and the way we build it makes a massive impact on the environment. Globally, the construction sector accounts for an estimated 11 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, not just through the use of heavy machinery such as cranes and drills, but also because of the carbon cost of extracting and processing materials such as steel and concrete. When those materials reach the end of their lives, that generates a huge amount of waste.
我们建造的东西和我们建造的方式对环境产生了巨大的影响。在全球范围内，建筑行业约占温室气体排放的11%，这不仅是因为起重机和钻机等重型机械的使用，还因为提取和加工钢材和混凝土等材料的碳成本。当这些材料的寿命结束时，就会产生大量的废物。
The most effective way to reduce construction’s impact is to avoid building afresh wherever possible by retrofitting old buildings. This is the aim of initiatives such as the Re:fit scheme, originally developed by the Greater London Authority in 2009 and now being rolled out across England and Wales. In London, its aim is to introduce energy-efficiency retrofits in 40 per cent of the city’s publicly owned buildings by 2025. When buildings do need to be knocked down, we must move away from the current practice where everything, including concrete foundations, is ripped out – something that often isn’t necessary, says engineer Rebecca Lunn at the University of Strathclyde, UK. And what is removed needs to be reused where possible. One organisation working on this is the Dutch non-profit Madaster Foundation. It has created a “material passport” that registers the materials used in a building, meaning people can plan to reuse them at the end of the building’s life.
减少建筑环境影响的最有效的方法是尽可能地通过改造旧建筑来避免重新建造。这正是Re:fit等计划的目标。“Re:fit”计划最初由大伦敦管理局在2009年制定，现在正在英格兰和威尔士推广。在伦敦，它的目标是到2025年，在40%的公共建筑中引入节能改造。英国斯特拉斯克莱德大学的工程师Lunn说，当建筑确实需要拆除时，我们必须摒弃当前的做法，即拆除所有东西，包括混凝土地基——这通常是不必要的。被移除的东西需要在可能的地方重新使用。一个致力于这方面工作的组织是荷兰的非营利Madaster基金会。它创建了一个“材料护照”，可以登记建筑中使用的材料，这意味着人们可以计划在建筑寿命结束时重新使用它们。
Using more sustainable construction materials in the first place would also help. Low-carbon concrete, high-tech wood products and even fungi-derived insulating floor tiles are among the alternatives being developed. Finnish company Betolar makes bricks and other materials from mining and forestry waste. It gets around the varying composition of these waste by using a machine-learning algorithm to constantly tweak its recipe.
首先，使用更可持续的建筑材料也会有所帮助。低碳混凝土、高科技木制品、甚至真菌衍生的隔热地砖都是正在开发的替代品。芬兰公司Betolar利用采矿和林业废料生产砖块和其他材料。它通过使用机器学习算法不断调整配方，来适应这些废物不断变化的组成。
But there is a major hurdle to using new, sustainable building materials, says Lunn. Insurance companies are often loath to cover buildings made with innovative materials whose long-term performance isn’t guaranteed. Lunn reckons the way forward is to install sensors in buildings that monitor the performance of materials in real time, and give early warning of any degradation. “We need an insurance industry that will accept some level of risk,” she says.
但Lunn说，使用新的、可持续的建筑材料存在一个主要障碍。保险公司通常不愿意为使用创新材料建造的建筑物提供保险，因为这些建筑的长期性能无法保证。Lunn认为，未来的发展方向是在建筑物中安装传感器，实时监测材料的性能，并在材料退化时给出早期预警。“我们需要一个能够接受一定程度风险的保险业，”她说。