Modern Building Industry

Image courtesy of James Wells

The global building industry currently consumes 25% of the world’s timber harvest, 40% of the world’s materials and energy, and one sixth of the world’s water.[1]  It uses massive amounts of chemicals to treat and process materials, and many of these chemicals are hazardous to human health and the environment.  Many organic chemicals widely used in household products are known to cause cancer in humans.[2]  Common pollutants found in the average home includes: pesticides, lead, and formaldehyde.[3]    Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer and is found in concentrations greater than the Environmental Protection Agency’s “action level” in 1 in 15 households in the U.S.[4]

There is an increasing amount of scientific evidence that the air inside of homes and office buildings is more severely polluted than the air outside where there is at least more ventilation, and in the largest, most industrialized cities, people spend more than 90% of their time indoors.[5] Many of our building materials and furnishings release pollutants more or less continuously,[6] and because of the focus on efficient heating and cooling, we have sealed our spaces tightly, further exacerbating the poor indoor air quality.  Indoors, it is not only these individual chemicals, but the combination of many toxic chemicals that pose serious health risks[7]

Many manufacturers and industries claim to be more environmentally friendly by relying on recycling programs, but upon closer examination, we learn that recycling most materials results in progressive degradation, which is why recycled material often ends up being used in a manner other than the original feedstock.[8]  Furthermore, because of this material degradation, many extra chemicals are used in the recycling process, resulting in even more toxic products.[9]  We need to move away from thinking about recycling in this way towards a truly sustainable approach that uses materials that can either be composted at the end of their useful life, or recycled indefinitely with little additional chemical processing.[10]

In addition to the environmental effects of the modern building industry, there is the enormous financial burden of buying or building a modern home.  It is easy to see the effects of this in the 2008 U.S. housing crisis where more than 60,000 people lost their homes every month because they could no longer afford their house payments. While this crisis is a result of unethical lending practices and homeowners wanting more than they can truly afford, it is clearly indicative of greater problems with the modern building industry itself.  In the United States, the average cost of buying a house was $297,000 in 2007.[11]  The average lending rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 6.34% from Freddie Mac.  At this rate, the average house payment would have been $1846 a month and at the end of the loan the homeowner would have paid $367,596 in interest!  Returning to natural building methods drastically reduces the cost of building, operating and maintaining a home.

Natural building techniques have been widely abandoned throughout the world in favor of modern westernized techniques.  This is due in large part to media portrayals and social perceptions that it is a sign of progress. It is well-documented that the escalating desire to use western building techniques is linked to the perception that they represent advancement and wealth, rather than the fact that they are better, healthier shelters.  The top five building materials in the world are now concrete, steel, brick, cement, and wood, but these materials are often too expensive for many people.[12]   Unfortunately, making the cement in concrete is one of the most energy intensive processes in the world and adds a ton of carbon dioxide to the environment for every ton produced.

This shift away from natural building has effectively wiped out hundreds of years of experience and skill in working with natural building techniques that use virtually unprocessed, natural building materials instead of the highly processed, synthetic manufactured materials more commonly used today.  Approximately one hundred million people in the world are homeless, and there are at least another 600 million that live in shelters that are so meager, they are threatening to their well-being.[13]   As a global community, it is important for us to prevent natural, non-toxic materials from being priced out of the mainstream as niche green goods.  Access to these natural products should be the standard and not the exception.  Building a home originated as a personal and communal endeavor, and has evolved into a mass produced, highly mechanized process.  Re-connecting ourselves to the building process restores a sense of personal investment in our homes and our communities.  Natural building is something that communities and families can do together, and empowers those who have traditionally been excluded from the building process—namely women, children, the elderly, and the disabled.