A quantitative approach to the assessment of the environmental impact of building materials

1999 ◽  
Vol 34 (6) ◽  
pp. 751-758 ◽  
Author(s):  
D.J. Harris
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Building Materials ◽  
Quantitative Approach

scholarly journals Thermal Characterization of Recycled Materials for Building Insulation

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (12) ◽  
pp. 3564
Author(s):  
Arnas Majumder ◽  
Laura Canale ◽  
Costantino Carlo Mastino ◽  
Antonio Pacitto ◽  
Andrea Frattolillo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Building Materials ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Natural Fibers ◽  
Thermal Characterization ◽  
Recycled Materials ◽  
Building Insulation ◽  
Operational Phase

The building sector is known to have a significant environmental impact, considering that it is the largest contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions of around 36% and is also responsible for about 40% of global energy consumption. Of this, about 50% takes place during the building operational phase, while around 10–20% is consumed in materials manufacturing, transport and building construction, maintenance, and demolition. Increasing the necessity of reducing the environmental impact of buildings has led to enhancing not only the thermal performances of building materials, but also the environmental sustainability of their production chains and waste prevention. As a consequence, novel thermo-insulating building materials or products have been developed by using both locally produced natural and waste/recycled materials that are able to provide good thermal performances while also having a lower environmental impact. In this context, the aim of this work is to provide a detailed analysis for the thermal characterization of recycled materials for building insulation. To this end, the thermal behavior of different materials representing industrial residual or wastes collected or recycled using Sardinian zero-km locally available raw materials was investigated, namely: (1) plasters with recycled materials; (2) plasters with natural fibers; and (3) building insulation materials with natural fibers. Results indicate that the investigated materials were able to improve not only the energy performances but also the environmental comfort in both new and in existing buildings. In particular, plasters and mortars with recycled materials and with natural fibers showed, respectively, values of thermal conductivity (at 20 °C) lower than 0.475 and 0.272 W/(m⋅K), while that of building materials with natural fibers was always lower than 0.162 W/(m⋅K) with lower values for compounds with recycled materials (0.107 W/(m⋅K)). Further developments are underway to analyze the mechanical properties of these materials.

scholarly journals Special Issue: Supplementary Cementitious Materials in Concrete, Part I

Materials ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (9) ◽  
pp. 2291
Author(s):  
Alessandro P. Fantilli ◽  
Daria Jóźwiak-Niedźwiedzka
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Portland Cement ◽  
Building Materials ◽  
Cementitious Materials ◽  
Supplementary Cementitious Materials ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Cement Production ◽  
Concrete Part

The environmental impact of the Portland cement production and the large use of cement-based building materials is a growing problem [...]

scholarly journals Development of Building Information Modeling Template for Environmental Impact Assessment

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 3092
Author(s):  
Sungwoo Lee ◽  
Sungho Tae ◽  
Hyungjae Jang ◽  
Chang U. Chae ◽  
Youngjin Bok
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Performance Assessment ◽  
Environmental Performance ◽  
Building Materials ◽  
Building Information Modeling ◽  
Information Modeling ◽  
Assessment Tools ◽  
Building Information ◽  
Environmental Performance Assessment ◽  
Assessment Results

Eco-friendly building designs that use building information modeling (BIM) have become popular, and a variety of eco-friendly building assessment technologies that take advantage of BIM are being developed. However, existing building environmental performance assessment technologies that use BIM are linked to external assessment tools, and there exist compatibility issues among programs; it requires a considerable amount of time to address these problems, owing to the lack of experts who can operate the programs. This study aims to develop eco-friendly templates for assessing the embodied environmental impact of buildings using BIM authoring tools as part of the development of BIM-based building life cycle assessment (LCA) technologies. Therefore, an embodied environmental impact unit database was developed, for major building materials during production and operating stages, to perform embodied environmental impact assessments. Moreover, a major structural element library that uses the database was developed and a function was created to produce building environmental performance assessment results tables, making it possible to review the eco-friendliness of buildings. A case study analysis was performed to review the feasibility of the environmental performance assessment technologies. The results showed a less than 5% effective error rate in the assessment results that were obtained using the technology developed in this study compared with the assessment results based on the actual calculation and operating stage energy consumption figures, which proves the reliability of the proposed approach.

Proposal of a Simplified Environmental Assessment Method Based on Major Building Materials for School Buildings in Korea

2014 ◽  
Vol 905 ◽  
pp. 353-356
Author(s):  
Seung Jun Roh ◽  
Sung Ho Tae
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Impact Assessment ◽  
Environmental Impact Assessment ◽  
Building Materials ◽  
Assessment Method ◽  
School Buildings ◽  
Detailed Assessment ◽  
Impact Assessment Method ◽  
Assessment Result ◽  
Selection Of

The purpose of this study is to propose a simplified environmental impact assessment method based on selection of major building materials for school buildings in Korea. To accomplish this, environmental impact of 2 school buildings constructed in Korea was assessed according to the procedure of life cycle assessment. In addition, major building materials of school buildings were selected from the perspective of 6 environmental impact categories based on the assessment result, and a method of simplified environmental impact assessment was suggested. On one hand, case analysis verified applicability of the simplified environmental impact assessment method proposed in this study by showing similar value within 10% compared to the assessment result from existing detailed assessment.

scholarly journals Gypsum, Geopolymers, and Starch—Alternative Binders for Bio-Based Building Materials: A Review and Life-Cycle Assessment

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (14) ◽  
pp. 5666 ◽  
Author(s):  
Girts Bumanis ◽  
Laura Vitola ◽  
Ina Pundiene ◽  
Maris Sinka ◽  
Diana Bajare
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Conductivity ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Construction Industry ◽  
Building Materials ◽  
Initial Moisture Content ◽  
Limited Application ◽  
Ecological Building ◽  
Thermal Conductivity Λ

To decrease the environmental impact of the construction industry, energy-efficient insulation materials with low embodied production energy are needed. Lime-hemp concrete is traditionally recognized as such a material; however, the drawbacks of this type of material are associated with low strength gain, high initial moisture content, and limited application. Therefore, this review article discusses alternatives to lime-hemp concrete that would achieve similar thermal properties with an equivalent or lower environmental impact. Binders such as gypsum, geopolymers, and starch are proposed as alternatives, due to their performance and low environmental impact, and available research is summarized and discussed in this paper. The summarized results show that low-density thermal insulation bio-composites with a density of 200–400 kg/m3 and thermal conductivity (λ) of 0.06–0.09 W/(m × K) can be obtained with gypsum and geopolymer binders. However, by using a starch binder it is possible to produce ecological building materials with a density of approximately 100 kg/m3 and thermal conductivity (λ) as low as 0.04 W/(m × K). In addition, a preliminary life cycle assessment was carried out to evaluate the environmental impact of reviewed bio-composites. The results indicate that such bio-composites have a low environmental impact, similar to lime-hemp concrete.

scholarly journals A Building Life-Cycle Embodied Performance Index—The Relationship between Embodied Energy, Embodied Carbon and Environmental Impact

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 1905 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ming Hu
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Building Materials ◽  
Embodied Energy ◽  
Building Performance ◽  
Impact Categories ◽  
Embodied Carbon ◽  
Unexplored Area ◽  
Environmental Impact Categories ◽  
Building Life Cycle

Knowledge and research tying the environmental impact and embodied energy together is a largely unexplored area in the building industry. The aim of this study is to investigate the practicality of using the ratio between embodied energy and embodied carbon to measure the building’s impact. This study is based on life-cycle assessment and proposes a new measure: life-cycle embodied performance (LCEP), in order to evaluate building performance. In this project, eight buildings located in the same climate zone with similar construction types are studied to test the proposed method. For each case, the embodied energy intensities and embodied carbon coefficients are calculated, and four environmental impact categories are quantified. The following observations can be drawn from the findings: (a) the ozone depletion potential could be used as an indicator to predict the value of LCEP; (b) the use of embodied energy and embodied carbon independently from each other could lead to incomplete assessments; and (c) the exterior wall system is a common significant factor influencing embodied energy and embodied carbon. The results lead to several conclusions: firstly, the proposed LCEP ratio, between embodied energy and embodied carbon, can serve as a genuine indicator of embodied performance. Secondly, environmental impact categories are not dependent on embodied energy, nor embodied carbon. Rather, they are proportional to LCEP. Lastly, among the different building materials studied, metal and concrete express the highest contribution towards embodied energy and embodied carbon.

Comparative Life Cycle Assessment between Ordinary Gypsum Plasterboard and Functional Phase-Change Gypsum Plasterboard

2020 ◽  
Vol 993 ◽  
pp. 1473-1480
Author(s):  
Yan Jiao Zhang ◽  
Li Ping Ma ◽  
Shi Wei Ren ◽  
Meng Chi Huang ◽  
Ying Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Phase Change ◽  
Building Materials ◽  
Resource Depletion ◽  
Renewable Resource ◽  
Pollutant Emissions ◽  
Main Stage ◽  
Depletion Potential

With the emphasis of national policies on green manufacturing and the recognition of the people for green development, expanding the green assessment of products will be the general trend. In this study the life cycle assessment method was used to compile a list of resources, energy consumption and pollutant emissions during the life cycle of typical ordinary gypsum plasterboard and functional phase-change gypsum plasterboard, the key environmental impact indicators of both products during the life cycle calculated, the key stages affecting the environmental performance of products analyzed and identified, and the difference in environmental impacts between phase-change gypsum plasterboard and ordinary gypsum plasterboard compared and analyzed, for guiding the selection of green building materials and the development of ecological building materials. The results show that the global warming potential of phase-change gypsum plasterboard is 3.42 kgCO2 equivalent/m2, the non-renewable resource depletion potential is 2.25×10-5 kgSb equivalent/m2, the respiratory inorganic is 1.97×10-3 kgPM2.5 equivalent/m2, the eutrophication is 1.21×10-3 kgPO43- equivalent/m2, and the acidification is 9.47×10-3 kgSO2 equivalent/m2. Compared with ordinary gypsum plasterboard, the phase-change gypsum plasterboard shows the biggest increase by 874.03% in non-renewable resource depletion potential. The major environmental impact of ordinary gypsum plasterboard in the life cycle is mainly from energy use, and the transport process is the main stage of eutrophication. The use of phase-change materials in the phase-change gypsum plasterboard is the main stage causing environmental impact.

Sustainable Construction - Environmental Impacts Assessment of Architectural Elements and Building Services

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 ◽  
pp. 77-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Moňoková ◽  
Silvia Vilčeková
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Building Materials ◽  
Sustainable Construction ◽  
Building Structures ◽  
Single Family ◽  
Architectural Elements ◽  
Ozone Formation Potential ◽  
Environmental Technologies

Increasing concerns about negative environmental impacts of building structures call for higher demands on the design of environmental friendly buildings. This article is aimed at assessing the overall environmental impact of buildings throughout its life cycle as well as on environmental impact of all building materials and building services for single-family homes. This analysis examines the role of utilized green environmental technologies for the following selected impact categories: GWP - global warming potential, EP - eutrophication potential, AP - acidification potential POCP and photochemical ozone formation potential expressed in kg CO2eq, PO43-eq, SO2eq and ethylene within the “Cradle to gate with options” boundary. The LCA assessment methodology and eToolLCD software have been used to model the effects of houses’ life cycle.

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