Searching for sustainable pavers: Evaluating and assessing the environmental impacts of landscaping materials

The global building stock is expected to double in size as the world’s population approaches 10 billion. With this increasing construction activity, it is expected that embodied carbon will be responsible for the majority of emissions associated with new buildings and infrastructure.  While recent industry focus has been on improving building performance and the quality of the structure itself, the sustainability of the landscaping materials that make up a large proportion of the built environment has sometimes been overlooked.

Searching for Sustainable Pavers: Evaluating and Assessing the Environmental Impacts of Landscaping Materials examines the factors you need to consider when evaluating landscaping materials for sustainability, with a special focus on paving products. Sustainable landscapes minimise environmental impacts by creating a circular life cycle that emphasises the use of recycled or reused materials. Within the paving category, we are seeing manufacturers take this to heart, offering truly sustainable alternatives to traditional landscaping materials with low embodied carbon and other environmental benefits.

An example of a paving product that considers its entire life cycle impact is Anston EcoPebble Pavers. Made from a combination of locally sourced and recycled materials, EcoPebble promotes a circular economy and reduces its reliance on virgin raw materials while retaining all the strength, durability and aesthetic benefits of luxury concrete.

• Sustainable landscapes minimise environmental impacts by creating a circular life cycle that emphasises the use of recycled or reused materials. Each material is carefully planned to avoid having a negative impact on the environment, the economy, or human health.
• Leading concrete suppliers have been working to reduce the associated carbon footprint by using blended concrete mixes that use less cement, substituting it with cementitious alternatives such as fly ash or slag, which are waste by-products from industrial processes.

Download this whitepaper to learn about the factors you need to consider when evaluating landscaping materials for sustainability.