Concrete technology for sustainable development – an overview of essential principles

The continuing need for low-cost construction materials, and the equally important need to preserve a life-sustaining environment on the planet Earth are juxtaposed, in an effort to illustrate the problem, and the difficulties involved in realizing sustainable development. The particular focus is on the concrete industry and the essential principles that have to be accepted and internalized by industry before meaningful progress toward sustainable development can be made. Adoption of materials conservation technologies, durability enhancement methods, and a wholesale restructuring of the approach to concrete technology education, integrating knowledge from the humanities, the natural and social sciences and technology, i. e. looking at human problems in a holistic rather than in an isolated, compartmentalized way, are some of the instruments believed to be capable of bringing about the desired change