The Nigerian Institute of Structural Engineers has stated that the construction sector alone accounted for 40 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions in 2025.
Dr Taiwo Elegba stated this on Thursday in Lagos while speaking during his investiture as the 23rd President of the NIStructE.
While highlighting the need for resilient building and infrastructure, Elegba stressed that severe weather and natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, wildfires, storms, and rising sea levels are becoming more common and intense.
“In 2025, construction accounted for about 40 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions, a major cause of climate change. Requirements are becoming stricter and demand future-ready solutions. Sustainability focuses on protecting both the environment and people,” Elegba said.
According to him, construction industry professionals must tackle global warming, conserve energy, assess life cycles, and create healthy spaces for humans and other species cost-effectively without harming future generations.
He maintained that for structural engineers, innovative methods are needed to address the environmental impact, energy use, and other sustainability issues faced during the planning and design of structures.
“We structural engineers must ensure that our designs are greener and moving toward zero-carbon. From the initial design phase, it is essential to carefully evaluate the sustainability characteristics of construction materials,” he stated.
Elegba reiterated that, additionally, sustainable structural design approaches should be considered, “including reducing material consumption, lowering production energy requirements, minimising embodied energy, conducting life cycle analyses, and maximising opportunities for material reuse.”
He advised the need for members to drive the industry to address global challenges, particularly climate change, by promoting low-carbon, sustainable design, and resilience in construction.
Elegba emphasised that the era of measuring the carbon content of infrastructural development is at hand, stressing that sooner rather than later, all development must satisfy the requirements.
He highlighted that climate change brings about violent weather patterns and increased natural disasters such as earth tremors where they were not before, floods, and crazy winds.
“Infrastructure for now and the future must be designed and built to withstand all of these. For this, studies of the properties and behaviours of these phenomena must be intensified and guidelines for addressing them produced. NIStructE has done similar work regarding seismic activities in Nigeria. Structural engineers must continue to acquire the knowledge required to participate safely in this era. NIStructE must continue to review monthly training courses to address appearing in new areas,” he added.
Also speaking, the immediate past president of NIStructE, Johnson Adeyoye, said the association’s image is one of safety, efficiency, and excellence, both in operation and in the standard of its members.
He called on the need for the association to set standards for new entrants into the profession.
“We set the standards for those entering the profession through qualitative training experience and objective qualifying examinations,” adding that the association is always ready to collaborate with concerned governments in making informed decisions about having only standard, stable, safe, durable, and economically viable structures erected to adorn the entire landscape of Nigeria.
“Permit me to state once again that, to stem the tide of building collapse, governments should ensure that square pegs are put in square holes. Only Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria-registered, NIStructE-certified structural engineers should design and supervise the construction of multi-storey buildings in Nigeria,” Adeyoye added.
The Nigerian Institution of Structural Engineers is the professional body for the practice of structural engineering in the country, with international recognition of the technical and professional competence of its membership.
