Custo da sustentabilidade ambiental em empreendimento habitacional familiar

Abstract

The economic viability of sustainability in the civil construction is a Brazilian theme which is constantly approached to combat the cultural problem experienced in the current scenario, facing a lack of understanding by some decision makers - adherents to conventional building practices - about its benefits. The the aim if this paper is to identify the cost of environmental sustainability in a single-family housing development. The used methods involved interviews, surveys, analysis of technical documents, direct observation, application of the methodology case AQUA, technical reference in buildings housing and simplified mathematical calculations. The results of the identification of technical and architectural aspects, and the evaluation of the level of sustainability of the 14 categories of environmental concerns in the stages of program, design and implementation, demonstrated the essentiality of maintaining the link between the decisions taken at each stage to achieve the goals of reducing the impacts of the development. The results of the comparison between the costs of the sustainable and conventional construction demonstrated that sustainable construction tends to require higher amount of money for its planning and execution, which occurred by the consolidation of the market for conventional materials and technologies that induce to lower values when compared to new systems. Likewise, they identified the payback of deployed systems for saving water and electricity in the venture, in the equilibrium point of eight and a half years in operation phase. Finally, researches are proving and confirming in numbers that sustainability in building housings is not just a cost but an investment with immediate environmental return, and economical return in the long term.