It is well-known that a product or a system is sustainable if it is economically viable, socially acceptable and environmentally friendly. Load bearing masonry is one such example which is quite sustainable, especially if the masonry units are locally available. It is important to quantify the environmental benefits and cost, if an alternative to an existing technology is to be suggested. Of course the issues related to acceptance have to be discussed and addressed. This paper presents the quantification of embodied energy and cost of limepozzolana-cement (LPC) geopolymer based masonry units made using locally available bulk ingredients viz. tank-bed soil (TBS) and brick-powder (BP). The masonry adobe units developed have achieved the target performance in terms of strength, low water absorption and relative ease of production. Simultaneously the issues related to cost are also discussed in this paper. The studies have revealed that the bulk contributor to embodied energy and cost of geopolymer adobes are the alkaline materials viz sodium hydroxide and sodium silicate. However, the embodied energy and cost per unit strength appears to be better than that of conventional table moulded bricks in south India, especially when alkaline solution at 2M concentration is used with LPC.

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In the urban residential building stock, a major proportion is constituted by low-rise individual buildings. In addition to cost, quality and duration, energy consumed for the project needs to be accounted in the decision making process. Minimizing the cost of construction without compromising on the architectural and structural requirements is the primary objective of the residential buildings of stake-holders, especially the owners. The choice of structural system and the materials used for construction play a crucial role in this effort. This means that the use of expensive and/or voluminous materials such as cement, steel, masonry etc. is optimized. This could lead to significant reduction in embodied energy as well, if the choice of the structural system is prudently made. In this paper, an attempt has been made to quantify the cost and embodied energy benefits for a low-rise residential building by choosing two different structural systems, namely moment resisting framed (MRF) construction system and the partly load-bearing (PLB) system. The influence of choice of materials, contributing to reduction of cost and/or energy is discussed. It is clearly noticed that, when the structural system is re-configured as a PLB system from the existing MRF system there is significant reduction in cost and embodied energy without changing the architectural form.