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Building envelope. A key role parameter for sustainable buildings.

Omotac zgrade. Kljucni parametar za održive zgrade.

Author(s) : KYRIAKI E., GIAMA E., PAPADOPOULOS A. M.

Summary

Buildings have a considerable environmental impact that corresponds to al-most 30% of the global carbon footprint, with a prediction for further growth, and to 40% of the final energy consumption in the EU. A key role parameter for sustainable building construction, is the appropriate building envelope’s thermal insulation in order to reduce its thermal losses. Sustainability in building’s life cycle remains essential basically for two reasons: one is the improvement of the quality of living and the other is the marketing of the systems and the products. Thermal insulation was firstly introduced in Greece, with the Regulation of Building Insulation in 1979. Therefore, the paper focuses on the implementation of thermal insulation at buildings in compliance with the Greek national legislation framework during the last forty years. In this line of approach, measurements of the U-values and of the internal and external surface temperatures were carried out, in residential and office buildings. The sample consisted of buildings with construction dates that mirrored the development in legislation and in the building practice. Finally the environmental impacts deriving from the environmental evaluation analysis of the most widely used construction envelope materials and thermal insulation solutions, are dis-cussed on the base of Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) methodology. Considering the building materials’ environmental impact the use of resources and raw materials’ transportation lies in the heart of the materials’ impact. It is therefore necessary to promote the use of best available techniques and to promote innovative solutions in the production processes, in order to reduce the depletion of the natural, finite re-sources and carbon footprint. Another interesting point mentioned within the paper focus in the need to minimize the transport of raw materials, which is responsible for significant environmental burden. In that sense promoting the use of resources locally available is one of the most important measures to reduce transport emissions and, not to forget, costs.

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Pages: 16 p.

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Details

  • Original title: Omotac zgrade. Kljucni parametar za održive zgrade.
  • Record ID : 30020246
  • Languages: English
  • Subject: Environment
  • Source: 47th International HVAC&R Congress and Exhibition.
  • Publication date: 2016/12

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