Carbon footprint of building products and assembled constructional complexes

Abstract

Greenhouse gases are becoming bigger and bigger polluter of our planet. Carbon dioxide represents\ud the largest part of greenhouse gases (70 %), because of that we represent carbon footprint with CO2\ud equivalent (CO2-e). We will compare assembled construction complexes and their carbon footprint in\ud this graduation thesis. At first we will explain what greenhouse gases are and how they are formed.\ud Then we will present some of the studies that research field of materials in constructional complexes\ud and connection with its carbon footprint. Slovenian, European and global legislation about carbon\ud footprint will also be explained. In constructional complexes we will change materials for load-bering\ud construction (reinforced concrete, brick, wood, steel and aluminum) and thermal insulation (expanded\ud polystyrene and rockwool). Among all versions of constructional complexes wood and expanded\ud polystyrene gave as the best results in sustainable perspective. The worst results gave us the\ud combination with brick and rockwool. Steel and aluminum have the biggest carbon footprint, wood\ud has the smallest. Nevertheless carbon footprint of constructional complexes with steel or aluminum is\ud just a little worse than constructional complexes with wood. We got a lot better results with light\ud weight load-bearing construction (wood, steel, aluminum) then the massive systems type of loadbearing\ud construction (reinforced concrete, brick) because less material is needed per unit area for the\ud same effect