What is sustainability?

Concrete Construction, Feb, 2003 by William D. Palmer, Jr.

When asked at a recent meeting to list the driving issues in the concrete industry, Rick Yelton, editor of our sister publication THE CONCRETE PRODUCER, stated that concrete is a sustainable material. I readily agreed, but afterwards started thinking about just what that means.

First, I checked the Web site of the Environmental Council of Concrete Organizations (ECCO at www.ecco.org) to find an impressive list of concrete's attributes. Its ingredients are abundant, and their extraction and production cause little irreparable damage; it is readily recyclable and can consume waste products like fly ash, and polystyrene--recycled tires can even be used in cement production.

We could go on and on delineating concrete's wonderful qualities, but the general public still relates concrete to the big dusty quarry at the edge of town and the cement plant with the perpetual plume of smoke. They think of concrete as if it were a cold, hard, gray old man, not the friendly, handsome lumberjack that the timber industry brings to mind.

We need to do more to get our message through--concrete is locally produced, rather than being shipped cross-country as steel or timber are; concrete creates a structure that is nearly airtight, that insulates well against temperature changes, and that is rock solid in resisting environmental forces of wind or fire. And, one of the most critical new issues in buildings, it resists the growth of mold and mildew.

Getting back to the term "sustainable," in its newest connotation it means something that can go on virtually forever, that any negatives are outweighed by the positives. Concrete qualifies--it is steady and reliable and sustains the lives of everyone who counts on it, which is every person in this country, whether they know it or not, since there is some concrete in virtually every home or building.

And then we come to the people who produce concrete and turn it into structures--they are sustainable, too. We may not have the flash and sexiness of doctors and lawyers (I don't expect to see a new TV show about a concrete contractor), bur we know how to make a quality product and we go out in the cold and the heat every day and build concrete things that will be standing long after we're gone. Maybe someday, when you look in the dictionary for the definition of sustainability, the first entry will read, "see concrete."