The slogan Build Back Better introduced on 2006, on housing recovery following the Aceh tsunami. However, now the jargon seems insufficient with the current challenges. In every post-disaster reconstruction, the process is always followed by the potential of environmental degradation. From the perspective of the climate crisis, this process is exacerbated by increasing pollution. Therefore, nowadays the approach being offered for housing recovery is Build Back Circular.[i]
Difficulties in implementing Build Back Better
Under the principle of Build Back Better (BBB), all new
house rebuilds, must be safe from disasters. Moreover, it includes efforts to
prevent re-creating or exacerbating pre-disaster vulnerabilities in the process
of reconstruction. By strategically embracing and optimizing institutional,
financial, political, and human opportunities, positive externalities are
believed to arise from disasters, which can lead to safer and more resilient
communities.[ii]
But, it is difficult for affected people to perceive the
goal of BBB. Many experiences show there was communication gap and different
expectation inhibit people to understand the essence of BBB. Larger parts of
affected communities assumed that BBB means more aesthetically or bigger
houses. Learned from Aceh recovery, the builders, which are the government,
donor agencies and humanitarian agencies, they mostly used contractors. This
situation is understandable since it is exceedingly difficult for people to build
their own houses with concrete and brick walls and at the same time, fulfilling
quality requirements. In fact, not all contractors have sufficient capacity.
This condition also weakens the community's ability to carry
out the so-called owner-driven recovery. From donor driven perspective, the
builder provides housing solution. Start from planning, design, constructing
and the homeowner will receive a house such as turn-key project. Many builders
provide only single design but was expected to fits all. Moreover not only one house
design, the construction material are similar for each beneficiary. But, not
everyone wants a house with building materials or designs as provided by the
aid provider. Because every family tends to choose building materials and
designs as they think are suitable and comfortable with.
Owner-driven recovery and Build Back Safer
Aceh was special case in post-disaster recovery. It was the
biggest funding ever committed for the relief effort with total commitment of
USD 7.7 billion.[iii]
During its peak time there were 124 International NGOs, dozens of United
Nations organizations and 430 local NGOs[iv]
with more than 5,000 international humanitarian workers.[v]
This massive support is heavy with donor driven initiatives.
But on many post-disaster recoveries, 85% recovery done by
the homeowners themselves without humanitarian or governmental shelter
assistance, with little understanding to build a robust structure. They built
houses with their traditional practices which made them still in vulnerable
state. To reach and support homeowners in self-recovery processes, there is a
need to develop an adequate understanding of how knowledge exchange and
adoption in such interactions can be more effective[vi].
Therefore, the concept of Build Back Safer (BBS) was
introduced to educate homeowners on rebuilding their houses properly. It is a
knowledge transfer process with training, messaging, and technical assistance
to ensure informal recovery can also achieve safer recovery.
After the 2009 West Sumatra earthquake, the term BBS, became
popular. The community has more role and opportunity in owner-driven setting.
Recovery is in accordance with their needs, abilities, and time. The role of
the government and humanitarian agencies are to help by providing some amount
of funding and technical support. The assistance is to ensure that the house
being repaired or built meets the requirements for earthquake safety. Because
the amount of funding assistance is only some part of the cost to build a
complete house, people need to add from their savings. The result is that
people are wiser and eventually maximize with what they have. This includes
using reusable of building materials. The more homeowners to reuse the wooden
door frames, also doors and windows to their repaired or newly built house, the
more environmental-friendly recovery they will get.
Then it is realized that saving the environment is as urgent
as self-recovery. If it is not carefully monitored, there will be massive usage
of forest products in the form of wood or its processed products. Then illegal
logging could occur which can lead to other disasters such as landslides and
flash floods.
In previous recoveries some agencies were using fabricated
product to form house structures, which those brought from other cities and
even other islands. The use of building materials imported from big cities,
which are expected to accelerate the reconstruction process, was also not the
best option. There are at least two concerns in these initiatives. The more sophisticated
the building technology used, then less space for self-recovery will be. The
homeowners and local builders with no experience in the technology have to give
the job to those who have sufficient experience. These people usually from
outside of the affected area, also it might be from other islands. Moreover,
transportation of construction material between provinces and even shipment
between islands will increase CO2 emissions into the atmosphere.
Realizing a Back Build
Nowadays BBS concept seems not sufficient anymore. Due to
climate crisis we need to press on to achieve lower carbon emission from the
recovery process. Build Back Circular (BBC) is a perfect combination of safe
self-recovery and rescuing the planet from climate crisis. From the Circular
Economy concept, materials are used repeatedly until all functions and values
are used up. It is different from the linear concept where material is taken
from the earth, produced, used and finally disposed of as waste. The material
continues to be recycled until the amount of waste produced is getting smaller.[vii]
The current concept of circular economy shown in the graph below[viii]. The circular economy message is that the inner circles demand less resources and energy and are more economic as well. The time the value in the resources spends within the inner circles should be maximized.[ix]
From the BBC concept, the community is encouraged to retrofit or to repair houses by adding earthquake safe attributes to make it earthquake safe. Building a new house is only an option when retrofitting is not possible. Of course, with maximizing the reuse of building materials, such as wood, bricks and other materials.
The BBC is also pushing for local economic recovery. This is
because fewer building materials are used from outside the area, except for
those that cannot be produced locally, such as cement and iron. Instead of
using masons from other area because they use sophisticated building
technology, they use local product so local construction workers have more job
opportunities.
For the BBC to be realized, it is necessary to have policies
from the Central and Local Governments to promote self-recovery. There is no
need to worry if recovery is slow, because basically post-disaster recovery
always takes time. The government needs to be present to strengthen community
capacity in self-recovery through funding support, reconstruction guidance and
monitoring. This approach should also apply to humanitarian agencies who help
the affected people. The strategy is to train masons and homeowners as many as
possible on how to retrofit and to rebuild safer houses. Humanitarian agencies
can be partner with the government by providing technical support due to high
need of post-disaster recovery experts.
Strengthen BBC with Supply and Demand approach
Then how to reuse or remanufacture of construction material
as many as possible. All stakeholders have to work on supply or demand side.
From the demand side, the government need to issue policy on prioritizing local
construction material. The policy should also discourage on using building
material if its component contains mostly imported from other area. The demand
also can be increased through continuous education to homeowners and builders.
One of big issue in the wake of disaster is the debris. Following
the earthquake, the homeowner still can collect salvage material to be reused.
But if the hazard is flash flood or landslide or liquefaction and even tsunami,
debris become more serious problem.
The 2004 tsunami left an estimated 10 million cubic meters of debris in Aceh, most of it washed into the ocean and left Banda Aceh with mountains of debris up to 6 km inland. At first, many survivors simply burned wood and other garbage. But authorities discouraged them from doing that because it polluted the air and could expose them to harmful toxins. Three months after the tsunami, the UNDP started a USD 40.5 million recycling programme that employed 400,000 temporary workers to pluck wood and stone from the rubble and use the materials to rebuild roads and houses and to make furniture. The recycled waste was used to reconstruct 100km of roads and manufacture 12,000 pieces of wooden furniture.[x]
Hence, there are a lot of opportunities on managing debris
and turn it to construction material to support recovery. For instance,
combining livelihood program with housing reconstruction by provision of
funding for construction material workshop. This kind of workshop can recycle
building materials. The community can repair or trade used building materials
so that they can be reused. This kind of workshop will reduce the production of
new building materials which means that it is also more efficient in CO2
emissions. The more building materials provided locally, the more irrelevant
the dependence on building materials from outside the area. In the end people
can be left in a safe house and the climate can be maintained.
Education to homeowners and local builders also important.
They need to salvage the material as soon as possible. From Yogyakarta
earthquake 2006, on the first month, some of the survivors cleared their houses
from debris and collecting bricks and wooden material which they thought still
can be used.[xi] This
will be the first message of recovery to the affected people. As they will lead
their own recovery, this effort will help the to realize what kind of recovery
they might expect. Once the assistance from government or NGO present in their
area, they can decide to repair or rebuild their houses according to what they already
have or might receive.
 |
| Lombok homeowner salvage his house material following the earthquake 2018 |
Build Back Circular is achievable
Firstly, policy from the government to encourage retrofitting and maximize the usage of reuse material. Provision of funding and training to the local building material workshop to turn debris to construction material. Lastly education to reuse as many as possible the construction material.
Combination of those three will bring benefit not only to the affected people but also protecting the climate from excessive use on provision of new construction material which have impact on CO2 .
Arwin Soelaksono
[i] IFRC
- Shelter Research Unit. Humanitarian Circular Exchange - Making space for
makerspaces in the Circular Economy of post-disaster shelter and
reconstruction. Presentation on Climate Red 2020
[ii] Fernandez,
Glenn. Ahmed, Iftekhar. “Build back better” approach to disaster recovery:
Research trends since 2006. (2019)
[iii]
Jock McKeon, “Aceh Reconstruction Expenditure Update June 2007 data” The World
Bank, November 2007
[iv]
Amir Sodikin quoted John Clark from World Bank, “Sia-sia Rekonstruksi Jika
Tanpa Rumah”, Kompas Cyber Media, December 24, 2005
[v]
Carsten Völz, "Koordinasi kemanusiaan di Indonesia: dari sudut pandang
LSM" Forced Migration Review Edisi Khusus Agustus 2005, Refugee Studies
Centre, University of Oxford, pp.26
[vi] Hendriks,
Eefje et. al. Knowledge exchange and adoption to enable safer post-disaster
self-recovery. Journal of Integrated Disaster Risk Management. 2018.
[vii] Korhonen,Jouni.
et. al. Circular Economy: The Concept and its Limitations. Ecological Economics
143 (2018) 37–46
[viii]
Mihelcic, J.R. et. al. Sustainability science and engineering: the emergence of
a new metadiscipline. Environ. Sci. Technol. 2003 (37), 5314–5324
[ix] Korhonen,Jouni.
et. al. Circular Economy: The Concept and its Limitations. Ecological Economics
143 (2018) 37–46
[x] South
China Morning Post 21 December 2014. Indonesia's Banda Aceh, 10 years on, is
clear of tsunami debris, but environmental hazards may remain. https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1667595/indonesias-banda-aceh-10-years-clear-tsunami-debris-environmental-hazards
[xi] DW.
Sebulan Setelah Gempa Yogyakarta. 28 June 2006. https://www.dw.com/id/sebulan-setelah-gempa-yogyakarta/a-2958069
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