We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Fiberglass as a Novel Building Material: A Life Cycle Assessment of a Pilot House.
- Authors
Bjånesøy, Stavroula; Heinonen, Jukka; Ögmundarson, Ólafur; Árnadóttir, Áróra; Marteinsson, Björn
- Abstract
Alternative building materials have the potential to reduce environmental pressure from buildings, though the use of these materials should be guided by an understanding of the embodied environmental impacts. Extensive research on embodied greenhouse gas emissions from buildings has been conducted, but other impacts are less frequently reported. Furthermore, uncertainty is rarely reported in building LCA studies. This paper provides a piece for filling those gaps by comprehensively reporting the embodied environmental impacts of a fiberglass house within the LCA framework, modeled in the OpenLCA software using the Ecoinvent 3.7.1 inventory database. The ReCiPe 2016 impact assessment method is used to report a wide range of environmental impacts. The global warming potential is calculated to be 311 kgCO2 eq/m2. Additionally, a hotspot analysis is included to identify areas that should be the focus for improvement, as well as an uncertainty analysis based on Monte Carlo. The embodied emissions are given context by a scenario analysis over a 50-year use phase in three different grid conditions and with two different energy efficiency levels. Based on the results of this study, it is determined that fiberglass does not provide a viable alternative to conventional building materials if the purpose is to reduce embodied emissions from buildings.
- Subjects
CONSTRUCTION materials; ENVIRONMENTAL impact analysis; GREENHOUSE gas mitigation; AIR pollution emissions prevention; SUSTAINABLE architecture; UNCERTAINTY
- Publication
Architecture (2673-8945), 2022, Vol 2, Issue 4, p690
- ISSN
2673-8945
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.3390/architecture2040037