Guillaume Habert (Sustainable Construction, D-BAUG)
Construction industry consumes 40% of all material extracted, but one can also turn this challenge into opportunities. New buildings can be an opportunity to mitigate environmental pressures and generate economic growth. Future construction can store carbon emissions, be used as depositories of materials to be later mined. Building renovation can be a catalyst to re-activate social and economic networks in a neighborhood. Buildings rather than degrading the air quality can help to reduce harmful effect of transportation through noise and pollution absorption. To do so, we need to reconsider the global carbon cycle integrating biological, geological and anthropogenic flows.