It pays to be sustainable and inclusive

A desktop with a sheet of printed calculations, a calculator and measuring instrument with coins.Interesting results are reported in an engineering and mathematics research paper from Europe on the costs of including both sustainability and inclusive design thinking in dwellings. All costs involved in constructing a home were taken into account: materials, labour, construction, and the running and maintenance costs of sub-components over the entire life-cycle of a home, which is a nominal fifty year period. The authors claim that by taking the cost savings due to efficiency and adaptability of the home, there is a 23.35% reduction in overall costs. Therefore it makes sense to take this path for cost reasons alone: “If it were not for any other reason, like protecting the environment or caring for [people with disability] and for our comfort, there would still be a valid point in using these materials and technologies from the costs’ point of view”. The paper includes graphs and detailed calculation tables. The title of the paper is “Techniques for ensuring cost savings and environment protection in buildings” and is published in Applied Mathematics, Mechanics, and Engineering Vol. 61, Issue IV, November 2018. 

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