Environmental impact assessment (EIA) tools play an important role in standardization and monitoring of environmental consequences of developments. Nowadays EIA have significance in environmental management and decision making systems in developed societies. Among EIA tools, Ecological Footprint approach has been vastly used in various areas of economy and industry, including housing and construction. Ecological Footprint approach is a complement for other methods such as Life Cycle Assessment and Carbon Footprint. This approach can shows results of such methods in more tangible shape, i.e. the amount of productive land that is available for communities. Connection of EF account to material and energy life cycle lead to a new understanding of the environmental friendly materials And make builders sensitive to the process of production and demolition of materials.
Ecological footprint can be estimated for world population, a district or a country or for an individual and can be expressed in similar terms or per capita. Nowadays a global organization – global footprint network– release EF of word and nations annually. As follows all environmental impacts of a population are expressed in a tangible unit, therefore Society and public opinion easily accepts that the amount of productive land worldwide is limited. This restriction is expressed in terms of the biological capacity or the available productive land. Biological capacity is equal to an available land (land or sea) to supply specific needs, which reflects the ability of the biosphere to provide resources and waste assimilation. This amount is considered on annual basis.
Objective of This research is to account ecological footprint of tow case of residential buildings, in exact word the EF of housing. The connection between home and building has seen in construction and operation. But in this study the furniture and other facilities that are not integrated to building have ignored. EF of building comprised of impact of construction, operation and demolition of building. In this study after investigating developed methods in EF account, and evaluation and consolidation of suggested methodology, the EF of two case studies had accounted. These two cases are the Representative of two approach of construction, the traditional and contemporary approach. Two structures, that comparison of them can bring information about environmental results of construction methods. One of the two buildings has a much higher density from the other, the first building has a steel structure, and on the other hand the second building has a brick vault system, bearing walls and concrete collar beams. Residents of These two building experience specific unique places and live in different spaces from another.
Findings show that overall environmental Impact of steel structure case is a little more than the brick one, but comparing environmental impact of cases Per Area Unit shows absolute advantage of metal structure sample. Result shows that use of traditional construction methods is likely suitable, but with some Considerations. Builders must consider the context that traditional buildings formed and developed, Conditions that increase the efficiency of traditional buildings. But today the traditional forms of buildings are erected with materials that produced and shipped by heavy consumption of Fossil Fuels. In fact we see buildings that built with combination of traditional and modern techniques, for example masonry buildings that widely use machinery, modern transportation and electricity. As a side finding, evaluating footprint of these cases in square meter of built area, support the idea of compact residences or municipalities, however the negative impact of compulsory activities may compensate the advantage of compact form of residences.