The Impact of Insulation Materials on a Climate Declaration : A Study of a Swedish Preschool

Abstract: To reach the net-zero carbon goal by 2045, the Swedish government want to push the building and construction sector to lower their greenhouse gas emissions. This push is performed by implementing a law requiring building developers to perform a climate declaration over greenhouse gas emissions, to receive a building’s final clearance. The climate declaration is limited to only include emissions from material extraction until completed building. However, there is a varying knowledge level in the industry regarding how to perform a climate declaration as well as how different materials impact the result. Therefore, this study aims to bring clarity concerning the topic, by investigating where the major and minor climate impacts occur in a building process. Additionally, the impact of different insulations materials and how they influence the result of a climate declaration is studied. To answer the research questions, a climate declaration is performed on a Swedish preschool. The insulation material in the building is altered between glass wool, stone wool, cellulose fibre, foam glass, and polystyrene insulation in different scenarios to see how it impacts the result. The stone wool scenarios use both carbon neutral and non-carbon neutral insulation. Cellulose fibre uses both loose wool with data from an EPD and board insulation with data from Boverket’s climate database in the scenarios. The major climate impact derives from the product stage (A1–A3), meaning material selection have a significant impact on the climate declaration result. The building element with the highest climate impact is the inner walls followed by the foundation, while the floor construction, roof and outer walls have the lowest climate impact. On a material level, plaster board, building plywood and concrete have the highest climate impact in the reference building. The cedar panel have the lowest climate impact and is the only carbon negative material in the reference building. However, this is due to different assumptions made in the climate impact data concerning the binding of carbon in organic materials. The results showed that the insulation material with the highest climate impact is non-carbon neutral stone wool that is 16 % higher than the original construction with glass wool, while loose cellulose wool has the lowest climate impact. The climate impact from the scenario with non-carbon neutral stone wool in the wall and roof construction is 33 % higher compared to the corresponding loose cellulose wool scenario. The scenario with the lowest climate impact, with loose cellulose wool, is approximately 13 % lower than the corresponding glass wool scenario. The carbon neutral stone wool scenario has a similar result to glass wool. Foam glass has a 9.5 % higher climate impact compared to polystyrene insulation in the foundation. Regarding the selection of insulation material, it influences the climate declaration by changing the climate impact. The influence derives from a combination of climate impact per unit and material quantity used in the building. The material quantity is partly dependant on the thermal conductivity (λ-value) of the insulation material. The climate declaration shows a limited view of a building’s environmental impact for a limited part of its lifecycle. Therefore, we would recommend additional lifecycle stages and environmental impacts to be part of the climate declaration in the future, as a means to avoid suboptimization and unintentional problem shifting.