Environmental benefits resulting from the reduction of heating energy demand in buildings

The article proposes the manner of determining ecological benefits, which result from thermo insulation of the external walls of the building. In order to assign environment load the technique of life cycle assessment LCA was used, including the division into three damage categories: human health, ecosystem quality and raw materials. The production of thermo insulating materials causes the increase of the environment load, but in the thermal phase of the building usage the negative impact on the environment is reduced due to the reduction of energy demand necessary to heat. A few dozen of thermo insulation variants were examined, depending on the kind of wall, heat source and thermo insulating material. For all cases the analyzed investment turned out to be cost effective in terms of ecological aspects. In each damage category the reduction of the environment load was obtained. The ecological payback period was obtained within 0–5 years.