Buildings require large amounts of materials to be used in their construction. Many of these materials have negative environmental affects including: high embodied energy (require lots of energy in their manufacture); high resource use (require a lot of raw materials); non recyclability (materials that cannot be easily recycled are just storing up problems for future generations); toxicity (many materials are either toxic or give off a range of potentially dangerous fumes) and pollution (this can occur in the manufacturing, use, or disposal phase of the products life).
There are a range of materials that provide very good alternatives to the conventional materials that help to combat some or all of these issues.