The volume of China's recent additions to its urban‐built environment is unprecedented. China now accounts for half of all new building area in the world. Increases in building stocks of all types have occurred during an extended period of accelerated growth of the national economy. This expansion promises to continue through 2030. As a result, the rapid conversion of land from low‐density agricultural and light manufacturing to new urban zones of high density and material‐intensive commercial and residential buildings has consumed enormous quantities of domestic and imported resources and has irreversibly altered the Chinese landscape. This article examines the consumption of material resources dedicated to Chinese building construction through a survey and analysis of the material intensity of three major building types. This provides a basis for outlining the emerging life‐cycle issues of recent additions to the built environment and of continued construction. With this as the starting point, the field of industrial ecology can work toward formulating strategies for a circular economy that include a resource‐efficient urban China.

This paper reviews the diverse applications of drone technologies in the built environment and their role in climate change research. Drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), have emerged as valuable tools for environmental scientists, offering new possibilities for data collection, monitoring, and analysis in the urban environment. The paper begins by providing an overview of the different types of drones used in the built environment, including quadcopters, fixed-wing drones, and hybrid models. It explores their capabilities and features, such as high-resolution cameras, LiDAR sensors, and thermal imaging, which enable detailed data acquisition for studying climate change impacts in urban areas. The paper then examines the specific applications of drones in the built environment and their contribution to climate change research. These applications include mapping urban heat islands, assessing the energy efficiency of buildings, monitoring air quality, and identifying sources of greenhouse gas emissions. UAVs enable researchers to collect spatially and temporally rich data, allowing for a detailed analysis and identifying trends and patterns. Furthermore, the paper discusses integrating UAVs with artificial intelligence (AI) to derive insights and develop predictive models for climate change mitigation and adaptation in urban environments. Finally, the paper addresses drone technologies’ challenges and the future directions in the built environment. These challenges encompass regulatory frameworks, privacy concerns, data management, and the need for an interdisciplinary collaboration. By harnessing the potential of drones, environmental scientists can enhance their understanding of climate change impacts in urban areas and contribute to developing sustainable strategies for resilient cities.

It has become desirable to reduce the nonrenewable content and energy footprint of the built environment and to develop “smart buildings” that allow for inexpensive monitoring and self-diagnostic capabilities. Latest-generation embedded sensors, self-healing composites, and nanoscale and responsive materials may augur a time when buildings can substantially adjust to changing environmental and functional demands. However, faced with the legal liability resulting from unknown lifetime performance, designers and engineers have had little incentive to incorporate new material technologies into building designs. As efficiency issues become more acute, the potential for improvement in performance from new materials, together with partnerships between the materials science community and those entrusted with the design and engineering of the built environment, may offer real breakthroughs for the future.

Energy is a key ingredient to facilitate economic development in the Middle East. Expectations for a rapidly growing economy in the next decade will likely cause an increase in the fraction of energy consumed domestically limiting what is available for export. These challenges are the biggest for resource-rich countries, since their economy is heavily dependent on fossil fuel exports alongside an energy-intensive economy. Thus, the paper addresses the question of how the development of energy systems among resource-rich countries has changed over the past three decades and what role can they play in the sustainable development of the region’s energy system and emission reduction goals? To address this question, we present an overview on energy trends in four resource-rich countries in the Middle East, which nearly account for 76% of the region’s energy-related emissions and about 77% of total energy consumption. These countries are namely, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the UAE. Accordingly, we present a comparative energy analysis between the four countries through examining historical and current energy trends, the structure of energy supply, the status of renewable deployment and energy-related carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. Results from the analysis showed that inefficient energy production and consumption have played a role in the deterioration of the energy landscape of the four countries compared to the global energy system. Thus, this highlights the necessity for suitable energy strategies and effective policies that will be central to sustainable energy development. The analysis presented here could be used to better understanding of the impacts of current gaps and inefficiencies in large energy consumers in the Middle East.

The building envelope is critical to reducing operational energy in residential buildings. Under moderate climates, as in South-Western Europe (Portugal), thermal operational energy may be substantially reduced with an adequate building envelope selection at the design stage; therefore, it is crucial to assess the trade-offs between operational and embodied impacts. In this work, the environmental influence of building envelope construction with varying thermal performance were assessed for a South-Western European house under two operational patterns using life-cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. Five insulation thickness levels (0–12 cm), four total ventilation levels (0.3–1.2 ac/h), three exterior wall alternatives (double brick, concrete, and wood walls), and six insulation materials were studied. Insulation thickness tipping-points were identified for alternative operational patterns and wall envelopes, considering six environmental impact categories. Life-cycle results show that, under a South-Western European climate, the embodied impacts represent twice the operational impact of a new Portuguese house. Insulation played an important role. However, increasing it beyond the tipping-point is counterproductive. Lowering ventilation levels and adopting wood walls reduced the house life-cycle impacts. Cork was the insulation material with the lowest impact. Thus, under a moderate climate, priority should be given to using LCA to select envelope solutions.

Buildings are constructed, expanded, refurbished, demolished, deconstructed and relocated in response to the essential needs of contemporary societies. Inevitably, these needs evolve with time. Modern design and construction have always operated in a constantly shifting context of requirements and resources. It is well known that unanticipated forces and emerging circumstances have compelled change in architecture through the ages and yet, most buildings are constructed to serve for countless decades (Kronenburg, 2000, Brand, 1994). During that time, buildings are exposed to an enormous range of fluctuating pressures. In this age of furious technological innovation, growing global ecological awareness and changing economic and societal priorities, the pace of change is increasingly frenetic. Out of this state of affairs arise both significant challenges and intriguing opportunities.