TABLE OF CONTENTS In his book The Triple Bottom Line (Jossey-Bass, 2006), Andrew Savitz shows how current and future companies will become profitable based on the effective management of the triple bottom line, which includes economic, social, and environmental issues. The chapter shows how profit is tied directly to the way we respond to properly managing all three. In this current economy, many are looking toward solutions to create jobs, create profit, and "lean" their teams. Sustainability has become a large part of this response. This chapter reviews the current status of the industry in regard to its drive toward a more sustainable means of constructing as well as future opportunities and developments that create a positive synergy between technology and the environment.
The face of design and construction in the past decade has shifted the way we are using natural materials and manufacturing them into building products to construct buildings. Our use of the world's natural resources such as water, metals, and wood has resulted in an increase in material costs in recent years. For example, from 2007 to 2008, steel prices have almost doubled (www.steelonthenet.com/prices.html). And as the world's population continues to grow at a rate of about 203,000 people per day (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population), the question has been asked, "How are we going to build more sustainably, creating better buildings and using a better means of construction?" One of the main answers continues to be technology. Whether it is BIM, GPS, GIS, nanotech, green tech, or...
