IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v12y2020i11p4532-d366551.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Environmental burdens of External Thermal Insulation Systems. Expanded Polystyrene vs. Mineral Wool: Case Study from Poland

Author

Listed:
  • Jacek Michalak

    (Research and Development Center, Atlas sp. z o.o., 2, Kilinskiego St., 91–421 Lodz, Poland)

  • Sebastian Czernik

    (Research and Development Center, Atlas sp. z o.o., 2, Kilinskiego St., 91–421 Lodz, Poland)

  • Marta Marcinek

    (Research and Development Center, Atlas sp. z o.o., 2, Kilinskiego St., 91–421 Lodz, Poland)

  • Bartosz Michałowski

    (Research and Development Center, Atlas sp. z o.o., 2, Kilinskiego St., 91–421 Lodz, Poland)

Abstract

The external thermal insulation composite system (ETICS) improves the energy efficiency of buildings, and nowadays, this method is the most popular to insulate buildings in many European Union (EU) countries. The article presents the impact of producing ETICS with expanded polystyrene (EPS) or mineral wool (MW) on the natural environment using the life cycle assessment (LCA) method. The data used in the calculations, related to 2017 real production, were obtained from the externally verified inventory from five manufacturing plants located in different regions of Poland. The LCA of the examined products covered modules from A1 to A3 (cradle-to-gate), according to EN 15804 standard. The study determines and analyses the values of basic indicators related to environmental impacts and environmental aspects of resource use. It comprises indicators calculated for 1 m 2 ETICS for five thicknesses of the mentioned thermal insulation materials. Results show that for all environmental indicators, MW systems are characterized by a more negative environmental impact than the equivalent systems with EPS. The study aims to highlight knowledge about ETICS sustainability. The data presented in work are essential for assessment in terms of the sustainable development of ETICS. Such an evaluation is not just a need for the future but a necessity for the present.

Suggested Citation

  • Jacek Michalak & Sebastian Czernik & Marta Marcinek & Bartosz Michałowski, 2020. "Environmental burdens of External Thermal Insulation Systems. Expanded Polystyrene vs. Mineral Wool: Case Study from Poland," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-16, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:11:p:4532-:d:366551
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/11/4532/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/11/4532/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fabio Bisegna & Benedetta Mattoni & Paola Gori & Francesco Asdrubali & Claudia Guattari & Luca Evangelisti & Sara Sambuco & Francesco Bianchi, 2016. "Influence of Insulating Materials on Green Building Rating System Results," Energies, MDPI, vol. 9(9), pages 1-17, September.
    2. Aditya, L. & Mahlia, T.M.I. & Rismanchi, B. & Ng, H.M. & Hasan, M.H. & Metselaar, H.S.C. & Muraza, Oki & Aditiya, H.B., 2017. "A review on insulation materials for energy conservation in buildings," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 1352-1365.
    3. Stefan Sattler & Doris Österreicher, 2019. "Assessment of Sustainable Construction Measures in Building Refurbishment—Life Cycle Comparison of Conventional and Multi-Active Façade Systems in a Social Housing Complex," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(16), pages 1-22, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Darja Kubečková & Michal Kraus & Ingrid Juhásová Šenitková & Magdaléna Vrbová, 2020. "The Indoor Microclimate of Prefabricated Buildings for Housing: Interaction of Environmental and Construction Measures," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(23), pages 1-23, December.
    2. Darja Kubečková & Magdaléna Vrbová, 2021. "Historical Development of Thermal Protection of Prefab Residential Housing and Its Future, an Example of the Czech Republic," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-21, May.
    3. Jacek Michalak & Bartosz Michałowski, 2022. "Understanding Sustainability of Construction Products: Answers from Investors, Contractors, and Sellers of Building Materials," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-14, March.
    4. Rayane de Lima Moura Paiva & Lucas Rosse Caldas & Adriana Paiva de Souza Martins & Patricia Brandão de Sousa & Giulia Fea de Oliveira & Romildo Dias Toledo Filho, 2021. "Thermal-Energy Analysis and Life Cycle GHG Emissions Assessments of Innovative Earth-Based Bamboo Plastering Mortars," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(18), pages 1-24, September.
    5. Jacek Michalak, 2021. "External Thermal Insulation Composite Systems (ETICS) from Industry and Academia Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(24), pages 1-18, December.
    6. Sebastian Czernik & Marta Marcinek & Bartosz Michałowski & Michał Piasecki & Justyna Tomaszewska & Jacek Michalak, 2020. "Environmental Footprint of Cementitious Adhesives—Components of ETICS," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(21), pages 1-13, October.
    7. Małgorzata Niziurska & Michał Wieczorek & Klaudiusz Borkowicz, 2022. "Fire Safety of External Thermal Insulation Systems (ETICS) in the Aspect of Sustainable Use of Natural Resources," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(3), pages 1-15, January.
    8. Kamila Ewelina Mazur & Witold Jan Wardal & Jan Barwicki & Mikhail Tseyko, 2025. "Thermal Insulation of Agricultural Buildings Using Different Biomass Materials," Energies, MDPI, vol. 18(3), pages 1-20, January.
    9. Darja Kubečková, 2022. "The Quality of ETICS in the Context of Energy and Social Changes (Case Study)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-13, March.
    10. Pamela Del Rosario & Elisabetta Palumbo & Marzia Traverso, 2021. "Environmental Product Declarations as Data Source for the Environmental Assessment of Buildings in the Context of Level(s) and DGNB: How Feasible Is Their Adoption?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-22, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Indre Siksnelyte-Butkiene & Dalia Streimikiene & Tomas Balezentis & Virgilijus Skulskis, 2021. "A Systematic Literature Review of Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Methods for Sustainable Selection of Insulation Materials in Buildings," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-21, January.
    2. Sebastian Czernik & Marta Marcinek & Bartosz Michałowski & Michał Piasecki & Justyna Tomaszewska & Jacek Michalak, 2020. "Environmental Footprint of Cementitious Adhesives—Components of ETICS," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(21), pages 1-13, October.
    3. Ikutegbe, Charles A. & Farid, Mohammed M., 2020. "Application of phase change material foam composites in the built environment: A critical review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    4. Stefano Perilli & Davide Palumbo & Stefano Sfarra & Umberto Galietti, 2021. "Advanced Insulation Materials for Facades: Analyzing Detachments Using Numerical Simulations and Infrared Thermography," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-17, November.
    5. Hawks, M.A. & Cho, S., 2024. "Review and analysis of current solutions and trends for zero energy building (ZEB) thermal systems," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 189(PB).
    6. Lee, Seokjae & Park, Sangwoo & Won, Jongmuk & Choi, Hangseok, 2021. "Influential factors on thermal performance of energy slabs equipped with an insulation layer," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 174(C), pages 823-834.
    7. Claudia Fabiani & Anna Laura Pisello & Marco Barbanera & Luisa F. Cabeza & Franco Cotana, 2019. "Assessing the Potentiality of Animal Fat Based-Bio Phase Change Materials (PCM) for Building Applications: An Innovative Multipurpose Thermal Investigation," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-18, March.
    8. Luo, Yongqiang & Zhang, Ling & Liu, Zhongbing & Yu, Jinghua & Xu, Xinhua & Su, Xiaosong, 2020. "Towards net zero energy building: The application potential and adaptability of photovoltaic-thermoelectric-battery wall system," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 258(C).
    9. Hosseini Dehshiri, Seyyed Shahabaddin & Firoozabadi, Bahar, 2025. "Optimizing building energy solutions: A guideline for choosing proper multi criteria decision making methods in energy problems," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 317(C).
    10. Gonçalves, Márcio & Simões, Nuno & Serra, Catarina & Flores-Colen, Inês, 2020. "A review of the challenges posed by the use of vacuum panels in external insulation finishing systems," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 257(C).
    11. Almalkawi, Areej T. & Soroushian, Parviz & Shrestha, Som S., 2019. "Evaluation of the Energy-Efficiency of an Aerated Slurry-Infiltrated Mesh Building System with Biomass-Based Insulation," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 797-806.
    12. Luo, Yongqiang & Zhang, Ling & Liu, Zhongbing & Wu, Jing & Zhang, Yelin & Wu, Zhenghong & He, Xihua, 2017. "Performance analysis of a self-adaptive building integrated photovoltaic thermoelectric wall system in hot summer and cold winter zone of China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 140(P1), pages 584-600.
    13. Jisoo Shim & Doosam Song & Joowook Kim, 2018. "The Economic Feasibility of Passive Houses in Korea," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-16, October.
    14. Frederique Bordignon, 2021. "A scientometric review of permafrost research based on textual analysis (1948–2020)," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(1), pages 417-436, January.
    15. Parajuli, Samvid & Narayan Bhattarai, Tek & Gorjian, Shiva & Vithanage, Meththika & Raj Paudel, Shukra, 2023. "Assessment of potential renewable energy alternatives for a typical greenhouse aquaponics in Himalayan Region of Nepal," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 344(C).
    16. Haleh Boostani & Polat Hancer, 2018. "A Model for External Walls Selection in Hot and Humid Climates," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-23, December.
    17. Ng, Wai Lam & Chin, Min Yee & Zhou, Jinqin & Woon, Kok Sin & Ching, Ann Ying, 2022. "The overlooked criteria in green building certification system: Embodied energy and thermal insulation on non-residential building with a case study in Malaysia," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 259(C).
    18. Kumar, Dileep & Alam, Morshed & Zou, Patrick X.W. & Sanjayan, Jay G. & Memon, Rizwan Ahmed, 2020. "Comparative analysis of building insulation material properties and performance," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    19. D'Agostino, Diana & De Falco, Francesco & Minelli, Federico & Minichiello, Francesco, 2024. "New robust multi-criteria decision-making framework for thermal insulation of buildings under conflicting stakeholder interests," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 376(PA).
    20. Kaya, O. & Klepacka, A.M. & Florkowski, W.J., 2021. "The role of personal and environmental factors in rural homeowner decision to insulate; an example from Poland," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:11:p:4532-:d:366551. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.