Environmental effects of concrete
State-of-art report (68 pages, ISBN 978-2-88394-063-5, June 2003)
The report has been elaborated by Task Group 3.4 Environmental effects of concrete of fib Commission 3 Environmental aspects of design and construction. It intends to serve as a source of information on the generally accepted and proven state of knowledge about environment related aspects of concrete as a structural material. It is written for engineers as a state-of-art-report and represents a comprehensive summary of the relevant literature and knowledge known by and available to the members of the Task Group. For this reason it is to a certain degree influenced by the approaches and generally accepted views in the countries where the members of the Task Group came from.
Discussions related to risks arising from the release of substances, radiation or noise into the environment, and appropriate limit values to avoid problems or implications on sustainability, are in general very controversial, and, in different parts of the world, developed to a different degree. Similarly the approaches and regulatory measures to ensure the general requirements of sustainable construction are still under development and may be extremely different in various countries. For these reasons no assessment and judgement systems related to environmental risks will be proposed, nor will limit values be given. The report is established on a factual basis and may help to avoid controversial discussions and emotional judgements, and may serve as a basis to derive accepted requirements. The length of the various chapters does not correspond to the importance or the risks related to the treated aspects. It simply depends on the information and amount of data available to the Task Group.