As the IPCC meeting discussing climate change issues and solutions continues this week in Copenhagen, the climate, energy and building minister, Rasmus Helveg Petersen, has called for more sustainable construction in Denmark.
The construction sector consumes a lot of resources and generates 39 percent of Denmark's total waste. It is believed that more sustainable construction practices can help solve some of the climate challenges the world faces.
”Construction has enormous potential in terms of reaching our climate goals,” Petersen said in a press release.
”With sustainable construction we can not only reduce out waste and resource consumption, but we can also make construction an engine for sustainability. The first step is to clarify what sustainable construction is.”
The minister points to research that shows that the energy consumption during the construction phase of a building is equal to four years of heat consumption of the building.
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Enlightening the building sector
Petersen wants to develop a voluntary sustainability class that can enlighten the construction industry to what makes a building sustainable. The initiative is designed to inspire the sector to build more sustainably in the future.
Sustainable construction can be defined a number of ways, such as via waste generation and energy and water consumption at the construction sites.
A working group will be set up to examine the elements that will be part of the voluntary sustainable class, which is part of the government's overall construction strategy to be launched on November 7.
