Experts advocates for environmental-friendly buildings in Nigeria

Experts in the building sector have advocated for environmentally-friendly buildings otherwise known as green buildings to minimise building-related pollution to achieve a healthier environment in Nigeria.

The president of the Green Building Council Nigeria (GBCN), Danjuma Wanifu, while speaking at the Future Cities Summit 2023, in Abuja, noted that the event was organised to bring stakeholders together to discuss the stack of the Nigeria-built environment and see how to move towards greater sustainability.

Wanifu explained that a green building is an environmentally friendly building that does not harm the environment.

“We all know that our environment is under pressure, we are all aware of climate change and other environmental issues like pollution and so on, and we know that the built environment that is building and infrastructure are primary courses.

“Building for example, consume over half of all natural resources that are extracted, that is what the built environment does, the waste from the building also contribute about a quarter or more of waste that is sent to land flow, buildings emit carbon dioxide that is causing climate change.

“Green building tries to have the built environment addressed by reducing its impact on the environment, for example, by being more energy efficient we use less energy so we emit less carbon dioxide and you reduce the impact on the climate.”

On building collapse, Wanifu said the green building can also help address this issue, saying building collapse is basically attributable to other low-quality materials or poor quality of the construction itself.

“When you use green materials, they tend to be of better quality, they are better sourced so you have less chance of this collapse. You have more professional expertise, the green building is not always that straightforward to build so you need experts to help you.”

Also, the chairman, Board of Trustees, GBCN, Muritala Aliu, disclosed that some states like Kaduna, Lagos and Gombe are already responding to the demand for green-sensitive infrastructure.

According to him, “it’s a global thing, everybody is talking about carbon content in the air and also utilising the green sources of energy. We need to broaden the stakeholder engagement.”

“We need to influence government to come up with or rather sustain policies, continuously sustaining policies in this respect, so the purpose of this kind of gathering is to review the achievement so far to look at the road map for the way forward and also now have robust policies for it to be applicable by the general public,” he said.

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