Proposal for the Evaluation of Eco-Efficient Concrete

The importance of environmental consequences due to diverse substances that are emitted during the production of concrete is recognized, but environmental performance tends to be evaluated separately from the economic performance and durability performance of concrete. In order to evaluate concrete from the perspective of sustainable development, evaluation technologies are required for comprehensive assessment of environmental performance, economic performance, and durability performance based on a concept of sustainable development called the triple bottom line (TBL). Herein, an assessment method for concrete eco-efficiency is developed as a technique to ensure the manufacture of highly durable and eco-friendly concrete, while minimizing both the load on the ecological environment and manufacturing costs. The assessment method is based on environmental impact, manufacturing costs, and the service life of concrete. According to our findings, eco-efficiency increased as the compressive strength of concrete increased from 21 MPa to 40 MPa. The eco-efficiency of 40 MPa concrete was about 50% higher than the eco-efficiency of 24 MPa concrete. Thus eco-efficiency is found to increase with an increasing compressive strength of concrete because the rate of increase in the service life of concrete is larger than the rate of increase in the costs. In addition, eco-efficiency (KRW/year) was shown to increase for all concrete strengths as mixing rates of admixtures (Ground Granulated Blast furnace Slag) increased to 30% during concrete mix design. However, when the mixing rate of admixtures increased to 40% and 60%, the eco-efficiency dropped due to rapid reduction in the service life values of concrete to 74 (year/m3) and 44 (year/m3), respectively.