It was brought to light by a team from IITM or Indian Institute of Technology Madras that between 2019 and 2040 the Chennai city would have emitted 232 million tonnes of carbon dioxide or C02 mostly from the construction activities alone. This would be about 25 percent . By shifting to an alternate material and methods of construction, the emission could be brought down to half.
The futuristic map of Chennai in 2040 was simulated by some researchers from IITM through a computer model. Information collected is that the researchers have found an increase in urban built-up areas and decrease in water and wetlands in Chennai in that period. It is known that India has committed to cut its carbon emission to zero by the year 2070.
Professor of the dept of civil engineering at IITM Mr. Aswin Mahalingam explained about how the research team studied the use of alternate building materials with low cement composition and clean energy sources to reduce emissions. He added that by using these alternative materials it would be possible to reduce emissions by 50percent in the 2019 to 2040 period.
It is worthy to note that the research study was conducted by a team of researchers at Centre for Technologies for low carbon and lean construction, IITM and Indo-German Centre for Sustainability.
Geo-spatial land models and life cycle analysis techniques were used by the research team to simulate how Chennai city would look in the year 2040. The team took into consideration the past trends and future constraints etc. Three methods were suggested by the researchers to reduce carbon emissions such as replacing traditional cement with low carbon cement, reuse demolition waste for future construction and switch over to renewable sources for building operations. It must be noted that sustainable development is very important in today`s world.