Environmental optimization of structures in terms of used materials

Abstract

Building materials play important role in buildings construction as well as have massive contribution to impact of buildings on environment. Materials influence global climate by emitting greenhouse gasses, acidification becomes evident regionally, but building materials also have considerable effect on occupants’ health. It is important to quantify effects of building on environment. However, some effects are easier to measure than others and also importance of certain effect needs to be defined. Life cycle assessment appears to be the most appropriate method for environmental evaluation. This paper presents one example of environmental assessment of building materials and illustrates environmental profile of particular constructions of selected building in Slovak Republic. Environmental parameters, such as amount of embodied energy, global warming potential and acidification potential were evaluated. For selected constructions the optimization of materials was done with aim of minimizing the negative effect of building materials on environment. The decreasing of the values of primary energy, global warming potential and acidification potential were reached for evaluated structures as well as for whole building (at about 3.3 – 12.3 %) only by a change of building materials.