DEVELOPMENT OF A QUANTITATIVE METHOD FOR FORECASTING ENVIRONMENTAL ASPECTS GENERATED BY CONSTRUCTION SITES
construction industry; impacts of construction sites; production management; sustainability.
The growth of medium-sized cities and urban concentration is a worldwide trend.In Brazil, this rapid concentration and the demand for housing, mobility, and infrastructure have seen generated negative impacts on the quality of urban life with increased pollution, waste generation, and neighborhood nuisances.The construction industry is an important agent in this process, in which the demolition, renovation, and construction of buildings involve a complex network of actors and activities.Despite technological advances and regulatory milestones, the industry is still far from implanting a low-impact crop in its construction sites.Most of the difficulties are directly related to the characteristics of the sector: the diffuse character of the production sites; the variety of activities and inputs; the intense use of transport and movement; the quality and productivity problems; the informality and low environmental commitment.
The construction process is not restricted to the urban lot under construction since the various flows (materials, people, and services) impact the environment and it creates "virtual construction sites".These are also important Generators Poles of Travel - PGT (loads, equipment and people), restricting mobility, blocking roads, damaging sidewalks and generating risks.In front of this context, this research presents a method for predicting environmental aspects generated by construction sites, through the integration between a cost base and environmental performance evaluation indicators.Initially, the model development required a comprehensive review of the state of the art related to environmental performance evaluation tools to identify the main problems about qualification and quantification of environmental aspects and impacts of the construction sites.The study then analyzed a set of construction cost databases to answer how to transform cost data into environmental information and this information into knowledge in building practices.To adjust the method, a field survey was carried out to analyze the local impacts of construction sites in the city of Feira de Santana, and how their construction management models and construction practices influence environmental performance.The analysis of the relationships between activities/services, environmental aspects and impacts was based on the model proposed by the EU Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS), supporting the development of the method and its mathematical representation.A case study was implemented to validate the method using the quantitative list (BOQ) from two residential buildings to measure their environmental aspects.The results validate the usefulness of the method to support the decision-making process in the choice of constructive activities and in the allocation of control systems, such as recommending the execution of off-site services to reduce impacts in the neighborhood.
In addition, the method was easy to apply for evaluation of construction sites, as well as flexible to incorporate other activities, adapting to the demand of builders and public agents to reduce the environmental impacts of construction sites.The results of the application of the method on the case study reinforce its viability as an instrument of environmental evaluation and as a tool to aid the decision making by the control agents and construction management.The choice of cost database as the basis of the method points to greater ease of implantation of the method and diffusion of environmental knowledge, contributing to promoting the reduction of the impacts of these construction sites.