As time goes on, certain building materials become obsolete while others are said to be more bad than good. Once a product is labeled as bad for the environment, you would think that immediate action would be done even on a small level but that does not seem to be the case. Materials like concrete (which is a harmful contributor to climate change by releasing tons of greenhouse gases), wood (cutting down animal habitats and also contributing to climate change) and plastic (literally starting to blanket the world it is used in so many things) have all been deemed harmful and yet new buildings go up everyday where these components provide the main structure.
Many strides have been taken to try to replace these building materials but it seems like these replacements have yet to been seen as primary construction materials. Concrete alone has twelve potential replacements or adaptations which can be added to the mixing process to decrease the amount of environmental harm the material is doing to the environment. One of the most popular switches for concrete being executed recently is rammed earth construction. In recent years, rammed earth has become more popular among environmentally conscious builders but its likelihood for becoming a main building component anytime soon is slim due to it’s formwork and higher building costs. Until the building processes for more environmentally safe materials become as easy and cost effective as the main components we use today, it very much seems like an uphill battle to replace typical construction materials.
Material Transformations 
Sarah, I believe some great issues and considerations have been brought up in this post, specifically on the lack of action in construction to better traditional building materials. As you pointed out in the beginning, typical materials such as concrete, wood, and even steel have long term environmental effects that have not been addressed through time. Looking specifically at concrete, there is a direct relation between CO2 emissions and architecture. As of 2019, concrete was responsible for 5% of CO2 emissions, with China’s construction industry making up 3% of that. One of the most shocking facts of information I found when looking up the relation between global warming and concrete production was this: “The carbon dioxide emissions from the production of concrete are so high that if concrete were a country, it would be the third-largest emitter of CO2 behind China and the United States.” We obviously know architecture is not the only contributor to this issue, but it does play a large role in creating an answer to the problem. As designers I believe it is our responsibility to take action and find more environmentally friendly materials such as bio-materials or rammed earth. Until these ways or building become more cost-effective and researched, there must be ways we use existing materials more consciously.
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Citations: (previous post)
https://www.ecori.org/climate-change/2019/10/4/global-warming-has-a-co2ncrete-problem
Click to access Construction_tcm18-114530.pdf
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The improvement of materials is a very intriguing topic, especially when it comes to environmental harms that it can have. There are lots of justifications that need to be done. But it seems that using some materials like concrete has been so deeply embedded in architectural design that the pace at which the replacement can happen is so slow that designers and mainly constructors want to continue with the concrete. On the other hand, the pace of construction is so important for estimating the budget and replacing new materials that can increase the pace at which a building will be finished. Architecture is indeed a field where a large investment can be made, and one part will be materials. Concrete ? to the architecture is so vast that it can be considered an industry for itself. Despite all of these hardships in improving and replacing materials, there has been studying for green-concrete in the concrete industry, a form of eco-friendly concrete that is manufactured using waste or residual materials from different industries and requires less amount of energy for production. One goal for using green concrete is to decrease the burden on natural resources. One strategy in making the concrete eco-friendly is to replace the cement with Fly Ash, Silica Fume, and Wood Ash, …
The issue is to see the material industry as a multi-layered area that architecture is just a part of it and needs an interdisciplinary approach between areas involved.
resource:https://www.specifyconcrete.org/blog/eco-friendly-alternatives-to-traditional-concrete
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