The sustainable university campus: some issues related to the use of geological materials

Abstract

University campuses are places with specific characteristics related to their leading role in the development of ideas, their relatively concentrated management structure and, more interesting for the present chapter, the innate link to research and teaching (which implies the potential both for diverse contributions from several research areas and for considering those contributions in a critical manner). Issues concerning sustainability are discussed in this chapter in terms of obtaining the materials (extraction and preparation), the impacts that result from the presence of the materials in the structures and the potential of these materials as teaching aids. These mains sections are developed in terms of the consumption and destruction of resources (such as landscape, ecological sites and water resources), emission of pollutants (associated with obtaining the materials and from the materials in the structures), and the question of wastes (both as problems and resources). The impacts of the maintenance of geological materials in the structures are also considered. The final section of this chapter attempts a global assessment by comparing different types of geological materials and these to other materials.