Conservation of construction materials for climate change adaption: strategies to unlock African potentials

Abstract

Scarce natural resources are utilized substantially to provide the needed global infrastructure requirements. There seems to be a dilemma between development and a carbon-free environment, as the exploration of these resources contributes immensely to climate change due to the emission of greenhouse gases and disruption of the ecosystem. In this paper, an attempt is made to identify various scarce natural resources that are being consumed by the construction industry and their attendant negative impact on climate change is highlighted. Various approaches to conserve construction materials are discussed and the needed infrastructure to be provided is identified. This paper shows that Africa has abundant resources that could be deployed in a renewable way to make construction activities more environmentally friendly. Strategies to unlock these potentials are equally presented. Thus, Africa has the potential to contribute to limiting temperature rise to the 2 degrees Celsius target by 2050 by deploying the identified strategies in its infrastructure development. The paper emphasizes that the time to deploy the strategies is now for a sustainable future.