Sustainable performance of formwork system in Malaysia

Abstract

Construction industry is seen to play a bigger role for sustainable society by offering sustainable construction. One of the major areas that construction industry should most pay the attention and control is the use of green materials in construction. More carbon reduction can be gained to the minimisation of energy in the production of construction materials life cycle. Formwork is one of the important construction methods in building construction. Nowadays, for sophisticated and repetitive concrete structures formworks system is used and found lead to more sustainable construction. In this context, this paper discusses a study focused on the importance of the formwork system and its sustainable element that responses to three bottom line of sustainable development. Questionnaire survey was distributed to construction experts in order to gain their perspective on formwork system based on their experiences. The economic category had been selected as the most important factor influence the selection of formwork system and the environmentalcategory1comes second while social becomes the third. The findings of this study assist developers and others stakeholders to make evaluation of the formwork system performance, therefore, it helps to determine the best formwork system that most responsive to the nature of construction and environment. © 2013 American Scientific Publishers All rights reserved.