Dear Colleagues,

The construction and building industry is one of the world economy's largest sectors, but also one of the largest contributors to the environmental disruption and pollution. It is estimated that more than one-third of energy consumption and CO₂ emissions are provided by this sector. In addition, construction and building materials consume more than 25% of raw materials and freshwater reserves. Therefore, the sector is commonly placed in the center of economic and energy policies related to social, climate, and energy challenges.

Therefore, the sector must shift towards a low-carbon economy and become more competitive, resource efficient, and sustainable. In this regard, as it has been widely demonstrated, major concerns are related to the energy consumption of buildings and infrastructure and the high consumption of material resources, including their greenhouse gas emissions across all the phases included in the life cycle assessment.

One the one hand, the embedded footprint of building and civil engineering materials encompasses extraction, manufacturing, construction, maintenance, and disposal. Hence, the replacement of raw materials by residues in a circular economy approach, more efficient manufacturing processes which reduce energy intensity, wastes, and emissions, or a longer service life may with easier recyclability are areas that hold enormous potential as solutions for lowering environmental impacts.

On the other hand, these construction materials highly influence the operation of buildings and infrastructures. Thus, improvements related to thermal isolation, hygroscopic behavior, or mechanical response, among others, can help engineers to reduce energy consumption, living discomfort, or the size of structures.

For these reasons, this Special Issue is aimed to show the most relevant advances related to building and civil engineering materials from the perspective of a more environmentally friendly footprint. Due to the leading role of the construction and building sector, an effective paradigm shift will certainly contribute to sustainability and the sustainable development.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

Lean manufacturing of construction and building materials, environmental impact of construction and building materials, sustainable conservation and maintenance techniques, improvement of existing buildings, replacement of natural raw materials by residues, construction and demolition waste management,  improvement of technological properties of construction and building materials, energy performance of envelopes, life cycle impact of buildings, CO₂ absorption strategies, economy of green building materials, social life cycle assessment, and longer life expectancy of built assets.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

You may choose our Joint Special Issue in Materials.

Prof. Dr. Pedro Muñoz-Velasco
Dr. Viviana C. Letelier Gonzalez
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• ecological footprint
• energy performance
• life cycle assessment
• circular economy
• structural safety
• lean manufacturing
• waste
• building
• construction
• environment