COMMENT | Sustainability in construction supply chain

COMMENT | The building industry is a substantial contributor to pollution. Making it sustainable and more eco-friendly has many challenges.

In the heart of a bustling city, construction of a new skyscraper is underway. Cranes swing, workers toil, and cement mixers whirl, embodying human ambition and progress.

Yet, amid this rapid development, a pressing question looms: what is the environmental cost?

The building industry will come under the microscope at this month’s COP28 summit in Dubai, UAE, a city risen from the sand where cranes are an almost permanent feature of the skyline.

Often lauded as an engine of economic growth and infrastructure development, construction is a substantial contributor to environmental pollution.

Take aluminium. It is lightweight and resistant to corrosion. However, the environmental price...