About
The Association for the Advancement of Sustainable Materials In Construction (AASMIC) was the brainchild of John Harrison our founder and formed by a multi disciplinary group of concerned professionals in March 2004.
AASMIC is currently being managed and directed by the following people:
Chair
John Harrison is the inventor of eco-cements, managing director of TecEco Pty Ltd and founded AASMIC
Secretary and Treasurer
Blair Freeman, technical manager for Fletcher Insulation
Chief Executive Office
Andrew Sullivan
Other Members of the Committee
Andrew Hancock, Yvette Karklins, Greg Longman, Maruta Roden
Issues
One: Materials are of major importance when considering how industry and society can move towards sustainability.
- Materials are the link between the 'technosphere' and the earths 'iosphere-geosphere'
- This link needs to be recognised.
- Obtaining, moving, using, and disposing of materials is steadily undermining the health of the planet
- Construction materials are of particular concern as the mass of these materials simply dwarfs that of any other industry. It is estimated that around 3 billion tons of materials are used annually to construct buildings worldwide
Two: Our system of material flows, and the nature of the materials themselves, is generally poorly understood.
- The total global flow of matter is estimated at some 500 billion tons per year - most of it is wasted.
- The flow of materials is largely invisible and unnoticed by the public, the consequence of which is that the importance of material flows to the economy and the environment is underestimated
- More information on issues such as toxicity, recyclability, movement and flows, embodied energy and technology advancement are desperately needed to ensure an effective system of materials flow is designed today which can ensure future supply and demand requirements for the construction industry can be met as sustainably as possible
Three: There is currently a low base of sophistication in the way we extract utility over the lifecycle of materials.
- From a materials and energy perspective, the economy is massively inefficient
- Much more is extracted than actually used. Recycling is inefficient and uneconomic. Vast quantities of useful materials end up in landfill
- Most materials research is targeted at today\'s commercial needs and not at designing an economically viable and effective system for converting waste to resource for the future.
Four: There are opportunities for Australian Industry
- Australia is a large producer of raw materials but over the lifecycle of a material extracts only a small percentage of the economic value
- There is an opportunity for Australian industry to leverage the intellect available within the country to innovate a new paradigm in resource utilisation which has opportunities to export to the rest of the world
Five: How do we take this forward?
- What are the major issues involved in construction materials and sustainability?
- What would a perfect system of material utilisation look like?
- What if our economy were organized not around the lifeless abstractions of neoclassical economics and accountancy but around the realities of natural production and absorption?
- What are the key barriers to producing a sustainable state of material utilisation?
- What are the steps that can be taken today to ensure a more sustainable utilisation of materials for construction?
- What steps can industry and government take to help guide us towards sustainable use of materials?