LCA of 3 Different Building Materials for Walls. Case: Housing in Mexico

ARVIZU, V; GOMEZ AZPEITIA, G; MENDOZA, J.; ARENA, A.P.

Cape Town

Conferencia; LCM 2009 - 4th International Conference on Life Cycle Management; 2009

Life Cycle Management

The housing built in series in Mexico has not considered in its design process the environmental and energy aspects, as a result, the materials used to build are always the cheapest, and not necessarily the most appropriate to the environment and the local climate. Consequently the environmental consequences as the production of solid waste, the disposal of residual waters and the emission of gases usually go unnoticed by the authorities in the matter, thus greatly contributing to the environmental problem of the country, and very especially regarding the global warming. For such a reason the Comisión Nacional de Vivienda CONAVI (National Commission of Housing) formulated a call for participation in order to finance research projects that could solve the omission of the environmental aspects in the housing sector in Mexico. The project ?Life Cycle Assessment of Economical Housing in Mexico. Case of Study: Wall Systems in the City of Colima?, which results are presented in this paper, was one of those approved. The project is based on the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method, since it produces reliable and objective information with scientific fundamentals and covers all the phases of the life cycle of the products to analyze [1]. In this research, an analysis about CO2 emissions produced during all the life cycle of the main building materials used in walls of economical housingis presented. A case study in Colima, in the Pacific coast of Mexico, has been considered.