Sustainable Building & Living

Focus on Plastics

Plastics are an integral part of modern societies, yet their current use can harm people and the environment. At the same time, urbanisation, climate change, health, and affordable housing demand new solutions. Sustainable Chemistry addresses these challenges by turning plastics into novel building materials, aligning with the global need for affordable and sustainable construction.

A visualisation showing people and various symbols representing sustainability and innovation in textile sector on a blue-green background.

Sustainable Building & Living: Challenges and Opportunities

ISC3 works on polymer applications in construction to provide strategic recommendations, highlighting key challenges and opportunities. Building on this, ISC3 initiated a stakeholder dialogue to discuss plastic management in building and living, and to identify potential fields for Sustainable Chemistry innovations.

Sustainable Chemistry holds the opportunity of supporting housing needs (SDG 1, 10, 11) while reducing pollution and waste.

From Problem to Potential: Reimagining Plastics in Construction

Develop sustainable solutions specific to each region, based on climate, available raw materials, and other local conditions.
Support the informal sector in developing and emerging economies through regulations, financial incentives, social programs, and training.
Incorporate life cycle analysis in the design and planning phase, which helps to estimate the impacts of a material´s extraction of natural resources, production, and transportation.
Deconstruct - not demolish - buildings. This is essential for a closed-circle building economy, together with take-back systems and a market for deconstructed materials.
Limit the amount of hazardous additives. And for substances of high concern, replace hazardous additives with non-hazardous additives.
Use materials made from residual biomass or secondary raw materials, which have a low rate of pollution when they are disposed of.

Workstream Report

The workstream report Plastics in Sustainable Building & Living was released online in January 2021. Due to many Covid-related delays of the professional international conferences in the field, the report was presented at the International Conference on Green Building (ICoGB) 2021 on September 3d-5th 2021 as well as at the 9th Annual International Conference on Sustainable Development (ICSD) on September 20th-21st 2021.

The report is available in several formats that can be found in the "Further Resources" section.