Sustainable materials for the built environment303Formula or prescription-based standards If the construction industry is to play a major role then it must shake off the shackles of the past and innovate. To do this it will have to abandon the formula-based approach to standards which grew out of the industrial environment of the early twentieth century. Standards are important for the protection of people, but if prescription based, stifle creativity. Why the industry is so bound to prescription-based standards from the past must be questioned. Performance-based standards make much more sense. National governments can force change by legislating for performance-based standards. If they did, innovation would return to reward us with much more rapid change towards sustainability. Expensive manufacturing infrastructure Infrastructure is expensive and particularly expensive in the business of manufacturing for construction. Plant for brick making, timber and plywood products, cement and so on costs a lot of money and the consequence is a cost barrier for change. Low margin product Cement, bricks and many other basic materials used in construction tend to be standardized, with little distinction between one brand and another. The result is price competition and low margins.7.6.3The economics of change towards sustainabilityOur understanding of the flows and interactions in the global commons is very inadequate. The widely held view is that sustainable management strategies are complex to devise and politically difficult to introduce. It is important in all this discussion to discern what can realistically be achieved and what cannot. As in dieting, whereby weight loss is achieved most affectively by both exercise and reduction in the consumption of food, reductions in atmospheric carbon and other reductions in our impact will best be achieved by action in all possible ways. In relation to global warming political sequestration is the most acceptable as it does not involve one person, state or country attempting to regulate the consumption of carbon by another, for which force will ultimately be required. What if sequestration and waste utilization on a massive scale was economic Underlying economic processes are human behaviors. What this mean is that if harnessed, human behavior would deliver greater sustainability. How then can we achieve this Economics is both a servant and a master. Economic
