Sustainable Cities and Society xxx (xxxx) xxx Please cite this article as: Abimbola Windapo, Sustainable Cities and Society, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2020.102606 Available online 14 November 2020 2210-6707/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Use and performance of conventional and sustainable building technologies in low-income housing Abimbola Windapo a , Emmanuel Dele Omopariola a, *, Oluseye Olugboyega b , Alireza Moghayedi a a Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, Department of Construction Economics & Management, University of Cape Town, South Africa b Faculty of Environmental Design and Management, Department of Building, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Conventional building technologies Low-income housing construction Reconstruction and development programme low-income houses Sustainability performance ABSTRACT Few studies have investigated the use and performance of conventional and sustainable building technologies of use in low-income housing construction. Hence, this study investigates the use and performance of the con- ventional and sustainable building technologies used in low-income housing construction towards proposing the most sustainable technological solution for low-income housing development in South Africa. Using a case study research approach, the study developed a rating tool for use in assessing the sustainability performance of the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) low-income houses within the nine provinces of South Africa with measures drawn from the Green Building Council of South Africa (GBCSA) technical manual. Findings of this study show that the most commonly used method of construction for low-income housing in South Africa are concrete foor slab, brick and mortar for the external envelope and a combination of timber structures ftted with Inverted Box Rib (IBR) sheeting for the roof system. The results also show that conventional building components had a much lower sustainability level due to the high use of concrete and that innovative building components have a lower environmental impact due to the low carbon dioxide emission associated with the manufacturing process. The study concludes with regards to the socio-economic and environmental di- mensions of sustainability that buildings constructed using sustainable technologies are more sustainable than those produced using conventional methods. The study recommends that public sector clients involved in the provision of low-income housing should encourage the use of sustainable construction technologies. Further, the research also suggests that the GBCSA should develop measures which specifcally targets low-income housing development to allow for the determination of both the socio-economic viability and environmental impact of the RDP houses produced in South Africa. 1. Introduction The construction industry is acknowledged to have a severe impact on the environment and is one of the main drivers behind the depletion of natural resources (Ding, 2008; Spence & Mulligan, 1995). Morel, Mesbah, Oggero, and Walker (2001) and Ndlovu, 2013 Omopariola, Idowu, and Windapo (2019) further state that the global construction industry is also responsible for high pollution levels associated with the extraction, processing, manufacturing and transportation of raw mate- rials for the built environment. Conventional construction has been the most widely adopted method of construction in South Africa. The traditional technique of production where the construction knowledge is passed from one generation to the other and where new technologies and materials are barely utilized is known as conventional building construction (Heng, 2017). Conventional building technology is said to be a building constructed with a technique in accordance with the standard practice of a country in a specifc period (Santori, 2007). The primary building materials used in conventional buildings are concrete, brick, wood, stone, glass (Anjay & Ar, 2017). A. Windapo and Ogun- sanmi (2014) concluded that the materials used for conventional con- struction, in general, have a high embodied energy, as well as extraction and land recovery problem. The conventional building technology has virtually transformed from traditional mud and wood houses to cement concrete buildings (Anjay & Ar, 2017). Therefore, Reinforced Cement * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: abimbola.windapo@uct.ac.za (A. Windapo), ompemm002@myuct.ac.z (E.D. Omopariola), oolugboyega@oauife.edu.ng (O. Olugboyega), MGHALI001@myuct.ac.za (A. Moghayedi). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Sustainable Cities and Society journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scs https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2020.102606 Received 27 May 2020; Received in revised form 9 November 2020; Accepted 10 November 2020