A multi-criteria approach for energetic expense and carbon dioxide emission decrease through locally sourced and recycled building material selection: Housing construction in Ghana

Abstract

Drawing on the concept of sustainability in environmental developments, this paper presents a multi-criteria decision process, in bringing cultural issues to the attention of house building stakeholders, towards the wider use of aluminum roofing sheets which is 41% as good as natural roofing tile, by a direct estimation which involves the expression of relative importance of the criteria in a direct way through questionnaire surveys to determine what kind of roofing material would be best for a separate house. Decisions involving sociocultural factors needed to be traded off. To do that, they have to be measured alongside sustainability principle indicators impacting the selection of Locally Sourced and Recycled Building Materials (LSRBM) whose measurements must also be evaluated as to, how well, they serve the selection of LSRBM with the least carbon dioxide emissions. The analytical hierarchy process is a concept of measurement to derive priority scales. These scales measure intangibles in relative terms. This explained 21.39% carbon dioxide emissions decrease and 64.17% energetic expense decrease for selecting concrete roofing tiles, the lack of informed knowledge and in the Ghanaian context towards climate change mitigation in West Africa.