Your Development

Efficient use of materials relates solely to the materials used in creating developed land; it does not refer to any activity related to constructing a building on that land. The focus is on minimising use of materials used in civil works such as road construction and landscaping, and infrastructure such as pipes for water supply and drainage and cabling for electricity and communications. 

Environmental impact of materials (e.g. embodied energy, life cycle analysis and waste minimisation) and recycling are dealt with elsewhere (see Your Development Fact Sheets: Street and lot layout and Flexible design for deconstruction and re-use).

Aims

The aim is to encourage efficiency in use of on-site resources and limiting imported resources.  Cost pressures often coincide with the minimisation of use of resources in land development as good layout design can mean less pavement area, more land for building, and shortest possible routes for pipes and cabling. Most of the literature on efficient use of materials concerns buildings where the consumer has the choice but in land development, the choice is with the supplier.

The key issues are:

• Using local sources for bulk materials such as those required for road making and land fill to minimise transport.
• Minimising land reshaping to minimise operational equipment energy.
• Incorporating services into a common channel to reduce common activities and service provision.
• Considering the impact of the requirements of the land purchasers (e.g. flat block for house and access to multiple services) as part of efficient use of materials.

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Key Issues

Benefits

• Benefits are indirect by not purchasing or consuming materials which are not necessary to complete a project.
• Environmental benefits are in less resource consumption and the resulting lowering of energy use and greenhouse gas emissions by manufacturing only what is necessary, not what might be needed and less unnecessary transport of materials not used.

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Risks

• Underestimating required demand for materials can result in project delays for want of small amounts and hence increased costs.
• Higher overhead costs could result from increased planning and monitoring.
• Unforeseen site variations may require additional materials or more off-site importing of appropriate materials.

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Savings

• Some reduction in costs of purchasing materials result from using less materials and transporting them shorter distances.
• Reduced length or size of infrastructure reduces cost and materials usage simultaneously so is a win-win solution.
• Main savings are in less use of resources.
• Savings are measured by lack of waste and unnecessary activities.

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Costs

• Additional planning and design may be required to minimise use of resources/ materials.
• Focus is on not consuming materials so out-of-pocket costs for supply and delivering materials should be reduced.

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Barriers

• Unwillingness to pay attention to detail and stick to it could mean less than the required effort eventuates, resulting in less effective implementation.

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Development phase actions

Planning

• Setting a goal to improve efficiency in use of materials is essential.
• Keeping in mind the impact of the development on others is a significant issue as the home owner, municipality and utilities are all involved in operating and maintaining the development long after the developer has ceased to have an interest.

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Design

• Work with the topography; not try to reshape it to an ideal solution.
• Minimise potential use or movement of materials, particularly in reshaping the landscape.
• Minimise runs of all roads, pipes and cables used for infrastructure services.
• Choose road layouts with minimum total road length keeping in mind the impact on the need to undertake civil works on the individual house lots.
• Take a global view - Incorporate recycled water (third pipe) as part of integrated services – part of trade-off between using more materials in a specific development yet requiring less infrastructure up the water supply chain.
• Use storm water run-off locally to reduce pipe system and capacity resulting in smaller and fewer drainage pipes.
• Combine services in one underground channel where possible both to minimise installation costs and materials as well as providing scope for unforeseen uses.
• Consider fitness-for-purpose and do not over provide or allow for future work which is not in the foreseeable future unless it is part of planned expansion (e.g. widening roads for future traffic or infrastructure) which must also have capacity to serve adjacent developments or next stages of a development.
• Keep public open space in the most natural form.

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Construction

• Use local materials for site works as much as possible.
• Use high durability materials for external works to reduce potential for maintenance and subsequent replacement of materials (which also may require more energy to undertake the replacement).
• Use recycled materials (preferably locally sourced) where possible.
• Avoid use of materials which may have a toxic impact on the environment.
• Consider the life cycle impact of materials used, including embodied energy; as should be done for building materials.

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Lot Creation

• Minimise total site levelling throughout a development by choosing sites with as little slope differentials as possible.

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