ABSTRACT
Drawing on the concept of Sustainability in Environmental Development (SED), building stock makes a significant contribution to CO2 emissions. The feasibility of SED lies in rethinking Locally Sourced and Recycled Building Materials (LSRBMs) selection decision making, in bringing cultural issues to the attention of civil engineers and designers in mainstream housing development, towards the wider use of Recycled Laminated Wood Flooring (RLWF) which is 55%, in CO2 emission, as good as Fly Ash Cement Concrete Floor Slab (FACCFS). Decisions involve sociocultural factors need to be traded off. To do that, they have to be measured alongside sustainability principle indicators impacting the selection of building materials whose measurements must also be evaluated as to, how well, they serve the selection of LSRBM with the least CO2 emissions. The analytical hierarchy process is a concept of measurement through pairwise comparisons to derive priority scales. These scales measure intangibles in relative terms. This explained a 15.9% cut back in CO2 emissions for selecting Bamboo XL Laminated Split Paneled Flooring (BXLLSPF) instead of selecting FACCFS, the lack of informed knowledge in the wider use of BXLLSPF and RSLWF and in the Ghanaian context towards climate change mitigation in the countries situated in the Volta Basin.
