Innovation and sustainable construction in developing countries. Ben (edt). Construction Publishing House Development of sustainable building materials at national university of civil engineering of Vietnam Han h H. Pham, Dai D. Bui. Kien T. Tong Departme/11 of Building Materials, National Universily of Cil'il Engineering of \liemam, 55 Giai Phong Road, Hanoi. Viemam. Telephone: +84 43 8693571. Frr>:: +84 43 8693684. email: hcmhpfz@nuce.edu.vn, lumh /998 @yahoo.com. buidai2000@yahoo.com. kien02088 I @yal10o.com Thanh T. Le Vepanmenl of Civil and Building Engineering, Loughborough Universilv. Leiceslershire. LEI J 3TlJ. UK. 1'ele- phone.· +44 1509 223782. Fax.· +44 (0)150922398/, email: TT.Le@lboro.ac.uk Tuan V. Nguyen Microlab, Facu/1y of Civil Engineering and Geosciences. Delft Unirersity of Technology, SteviJIIveg I, 2628 CN, Delft. Ne1her/ands. Telephone: +31 {0)15 2782307, Fax: +31 (0) 15 27 87966, email. 1. vmmguyen@wde/fl.nl ABSTRACT: Building materials are contributing a great pan to sustainable construc tion in Vietnam. This pa- per presents research results on the development of numerous building materials for sustainability in National University of Civil Engineering of Vietnam (NUCE). The Un iversity has three main targets in the sustainable development of building materials: (a) Manufacture and efficient use of building materials to save energy and minimise constmction waste; (b) Use of industrial was tes in manufacturing building materials; and (c) Devel- opment of high performance bui lding materials to improve the service life for build ings. INTRODUCTION Sustainable construction is referred to the creation. maintenance and operati on of infrastructure and buildings that shape communities in a way that sus- tains the environment, generates long term wealth and enhances the quality of life (ICE 2007, British Government 2008, Le and Vu 2008). Building ma- terials play a key role in the development of sus- tainable construction as tlley participate in most ac- tivities of construction and contribute a great pro- portion of the total cost of construction projects. Development of sustainable construction in Vietnam has been mentioned in a number of poli - cies and decisions issued by Vietnamese govern- ment. for example, the Agenda 21 for Vietnam and the Decision No. 153/2004/QD-TTg for the Stra- tegic Ori entation for Sustainable Development in Vietnam (Vietnamese govemment 2004). These actions are to respond to the Rio Declaration 1992 on environment and development with th e Agenda 2 1 (United Nations 199'2) and th e Johannesburg Declaration 2002 on sustainable development (United Nations 2002). In those documents, the construction industry has been mentioned as one of the crucial elements for the sustainable devel- opment in Vietnam. The governme nt required all organisations operating in construction education 201 and industry to improve the sustainability in all activities and transfer the knowledge on sustain- able construction to people as wide as possible. However, the implementation of the poli cies in practice is generally limited. The exploitation of raw materials and natural resources fo r manufac- turing building materials is badly organised (Cen- tre for Industrial Environment 200 I, Vietnamnet 2010 and 2011). In addition, the investment in building materials factories and industrial zones is not sufficiently ef- fect ive in term of sustainable construction. Construc- tion activities in Vietnam still use large amounts of energy and raw materials, and also produce a large a mount of wastes (Wikipedia 20 I I, Nguyen 20 I I, Look At Vietnam 2009). This has caused signiticant environmental pollution and adversely affected the quality of life of the Vietnamese peopl e. Followi ng closely to the policies regarding sus- tainable development issued by Vietnamese gov- ernment. National Uni versity of Civil Engineering of Vietnam ( 1 UCE Vietnam) http://nuce.edu. vn/ - a leading uni versity and the largest university in training civil eng ineers and doing research in con- struc ti on in Vietnam. has carried out a large num- ber of research activities in the development of sustainable building materiul s. The Unive rs it y has three main targets in the sustainable development