The Relationship Between Sustainable Construction and Economic Growth for Reinforced Concrete Structures in Türkiye

The construction sector is one of the key industries in terms of sustainable development. It plays a growing role in addressing issues such as sustainable cities, responsible production, and consumption, which are among the sustainable development goals set for Türkiye. Additionally, these goals aim to decouple economic growth from environmental degradation. The construction sector is also one of the industries contributing to environmental degradation. In order to reduce this degradation and ensure environmental sustainability, the vision of sustainable construction is emerging. Specifically, CO2 emissions from building materials in the sector are considered one of the causes of environmental degradation. This study aims to determine the decoupling of economic growth from environmental degradation for reinforced concrete structures in the construction sector in line with Türkiye's sustainable development goals. By examining the relationship between embedded CO2 emissions from the raw construction materials (concrete and reinforcement) used in the reinforced concrete structures built in Türkiye and economic growth, the study classifies the type of decoupling. It evaluates 12 statistical regions separately for the period from 2010 to 2019. As a result, weak decoupling was observed in four statistical regions, while strong decoupling was seen in the other regions. Weak decoupling was identified in the regions of Istanbul (TR1), East Marmara (TR4), Mediterranean (TR6), and Central Anatolia (TR7).