By Decire Gonzalez KC'S BLOG • • • • • 0 Comments

The Importance of Green Construction

The construction industry, responsible for about 4% of the world’s particulate emissions, is one of the major sources of pollution. Despite our best construction practices, air, water, and noise pollution continue to threaten our way of life.

Green building, a method of construction used to design sustainable, energy-efficient residential and commercial buildings, is now a growing trend and no longer a construction novelty. With pollution jeopardizing air quality, drinking water, and even putting our wildlife at risk, green building has come to the forefront of the construction industry as a largely marketable, thoughtful, and productive method of building.

A combination of sustainable processes and use of high-quality, low-impact materials contribute to the practice of green building. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) promotes several components of green building, including renewable energy use, waste reduction, and use of environmentally preferable building materials.

The popular concept of “reduce, reuse, recycle” is an example of an environmentally-friendly practice used during green construction, especially when it comes to waste reduction. As far as environmentally preferable materials, where concrete and steel are often impractical and expensive materials, timber is a relatively inexpensive, naturally renewable alternative with long-term sustainability capabilities.

Ultimately, green construction processes present a pollution-profuse industry with the opportunity to build smarter and sustainably, better control costs, and maintain the condition of the earth.

By Aliyah Thomas KC'S BLOG • • • • • • 0 Comments

How AI is Changing the Construction Industry

With routine development of advanced technology, the construction industry remains well-poised to reap the benefits from the likes of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics.

Compared to other markets, AI remains a marginally small factor in the under-digitized construction industry. However, the presence of fast-growing technology sets AI on track to have a much greater impact in the future.

According to a 2017 McKinsey report, AI has a place in nearly every construction phase, from design through post-construction and every minuscule task in between.

AI is suited to overtake four major components of construction: planning or design via simulation of maps, construction plans, and blueprints; administration, where AI is adept to manage and control tasks in a streamlined fashion; construction methodology, done by providing a basis and guide for construction; and post-construction, where AI can be implemented into completed structures.

However, the primary concern for AI is industry takeover, a theory that construction workers will be replaced by computers created to perform the same tasks with arguably more accuracy and less human error.

While there’s no denying the benefits of AI and robotics in construction, there are certainly a number of associated risks.

Other industries, such as fast-food, finance, and grocery stores have already seen a reduction in workforce numbers because of advances in computer technology. What’s more, talk of AI taking on industries such as health care and transportation have become less-farfetched as these ideas inch ever-closer to becoming reality.

And, while the thought of perfecting processes and systems sounds appealing, the idea of the world we live in being inundated by AI that is unable to deliver the human touch or incapable of accommodating anomalous circumstances, due to a lack of breadth in data, is not.

By defaulting all responsibilities to an artificial system, we ultimately run the risk of putting complete—and excessive—trust into a system only as good as the inputted data, losing human compassion and judgment, and displacing workers.

No matter the consensus on AI in construction, there’s no doubt that it’s here to stay.

By Decire Gonzalez KC'S BLOG • • • • • • • 0 Comments

Climate Change and Construction

With global temperatures, sea levels, and extreme weather events on the rise, climate change remains a topical and, more recently, contentious subject.

What does climate change have to do with the construction industry? When there is already an incredibly small margin for error on a construction site, climate change could mean everything.

Safety is the leading concern of the construction industry when it comes to climate change. Adverse weather conditions like excessive rain, snow, wind, heat, or cold can significantly reduce safe working conditions. The result? Severe injuries from slips, falls, electrocution, heat exhaustion, and more.

While worksite safety can be entirely compromised by changes in climate, so too can building materials. As temperatures rise, the integrity of materials like wood and concrete are put at risk. Not only that, but climate change increases the need for new, innovative, and potentially costly building techniques to protect existing infrastructure from severe weather conditions.

Along with the physical constraints of climate change on the construction industry, there is also the possibility for monetary setbacks. According to Construction Business Owner, economists estimate that weather-related incidents cost the construction industry “$3.8 trillion a year in the United States.” With U.S. infrastructure spending already at a tremendous deficit, $3.8 trillion lost in profits only serves as an additional obstruction.

Rather than ascribe weather-related construction risks—such as worksite safety, deterioration of building materials, and profit loss—to an inevitable force majeure, experts suggest proactive implementation of risk management strategies.

Construction insurance, increased employee awareness, and acceptance of unpredictability may be the only ways to work through construction setbacks resulting from climate change.