Sustainability of column-supported slabs for buildings: A multi-criteria assessment

The global construction industry is experiencing significant growth, driving the demand for building floor area. However, this expansion comes with substantial environmental consequences, including high-energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, together with economic and social impacts. To address these challenges, this research aims at providing designers and decisions-makers with an approach that will aid the quantification of those impacts relevant for the sustainability performance of flooring systems. A holistic sustainability assessment was performed considering economic, environmental, and social aspects using the Integrated Value Model for Sustainability Evaluations. This study focused on various flooring typologies, including reinforced concrete (RC) and fiber-RC (FRC) slabs with solid and waffle (for RC solution) configurations. The most representative criteria and indicators of sustainability for concrete column-supported slabs were identified, measured, and weighted—aggregated in a decision-making tree—in order to obtain a representative a sustainability index (SI) for each alternative. The results of the analysis evidence that the RC solid slab has a higher overall SI than the other alternatives, the FRC alternatives performing with similar SI of that quantified for the RC solid slab solution and the RC waffle slab being that with the lower sustainability performance among those flooring systems considered in this study. The results of a sensitivity analysis showed that those alternatives using FRC have potential for improving the overall sustainability performance.