Life Cycle Assessments of

Building Insulation Materials

Technical Report · November 2017

Type of LCA: Comparative, attributional

Prepared for the UIA by:

Dmitri Rybakov
Fatma Dghim
Maxime Lepretre
Morgan Le Ster

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Foreword

Ability to maintain comfortable temperature have been an important task since start of the
civilisation. The main insulation method used in BC times was sizing of the wall, until Ancient Greeks
made an important discovery by inventing cavity walling. Asbestos insulation was also invented
around the same time and actually became main form of insulation after industrial revolution for
over a century, until 1970 when harmful effects of asbestos were finally properly documented. All
use of asbestos was prohibited in Norway in 1980, but can still be found in older houses.
In recent decades, there has been an increasing awareness to become more energy efficient and
environmentally conscious, leading to a lot of studies unfolding around insulation materials. In this
paper we will look at environmental impact of three of the most common thermal insulations
available today:

Mineral Wool (Stone and Glass wool), developed by John Player in Philadelphia, USA in 1870.
Expanded Polystyrene (EPS), developed by Kopper Company in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania in 1954.

This study was conducted by students at Agder University in accordance with ISO 14040
requirements.

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Abstract

The aim of this analysis was to compare three common insulation materials by means of Life Cycle
Assessment considering mainly their environmental impacts. This study has chosen following
insulation materials, namely Expanded polystyrene (EPS), Glass Wool and Stone Wool which are
often used in Scandinavian buildings. Geographical boundaries of this study were reduced to a
specific town (Grimstad, Norway).

By means of interviews with manufacturers, literature study and comparative LCAs, it was found that
Glass Wool is the most environmentally friendly insulation material for this geometrical boundaries.
The reason is glass wool density which is almost twice as small as density of stone wool leading to
smaller amount of mineral and energy required for the production leading to lower environmental
impact. Glass wool also scores high in important factors like compression, fire class, improvement
and recycling possibilities making it even more attractive choice.

From the environmental point of view, both EPS and mineral wools should be improved further. For
EPS, separation of fire retardant HBCD from polystyrene should be considered allowing for the
recycling of existing products avoiding the waste of all the Expanded Polystyrene that was installed in
the past. For glass and stone wool, formaldehyde free material should replace binders used today. It
will lead to significant reduction in abiotic depletion and acidification impacts from binder production
processes.

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Index of Abbreviations

General

ISO - International organization of standardization

LCA - Life cycle assessment

LCI - Life cycle inventory

EDP - Environmental Product Declaration

Insulations and materials

PUR - Polyurethane

UF - Urea formaldehyde

PF - Phenon formaldehyde

EPS - Expanded Polystyrene

GHG - Greenhouse gas

GWP - Global warming potential

ODP - Ozone depletion potential

HBCD - Hexabromocyclododecane

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List of Figures

FIGURE 1 LIFE CYCLE STAGES FOR THE BUILDING ASSESSMENT, EN 15804 .............................................................................. 9
FIGURE 2 FLOW CHART AND SYSTEM BOUNDARY .............................................................................................................. 10
FIGURE 3 DATA AVAILABILITY OVERVIEW......................................................................................................................... 13
FIGURE 4 FLOWCHART FOR STONE WOOL ....................................................................................................................... 16
FIGURE 5 FLOWCHART FOR EPS.................................................................................................................................... 17
FIGURE 6: FLOWCHART FOR GLASS WOOL ...................................................................................................................... 19
FIGURE 7 : EMISSION DATA FOR EACH PROCESS OF GLASS WOOL PRODUCTION ....................................................................... 21
FIGURE 8 : EMISSION DATA FOR EACH PROCESS OF EPS PRODUCTION ................................................................................... 22
FIGURE 9 : EMISSION DATA FOR EACH PROCESS OF STONE WOOL PRODUCTION ....................................................................... 23
FIGURE 10: COMPARATIVE EMISSION OF ALL INSULATIONS ................................................................................................. 24

List of tables

TABLE 1: DEFINITION OF THE FUNCTIONAL UNIT FOR THIS STUDY ......................................................................................... 14

TABLE 2: TRANSPORTATION PHASE DATA ........................................................................................................................ 14
TABLE 3 PRODUCTS CHOSEN FOR THIS STUDY ................................................................................................................... 15
TABLE 4 INSULATION SCORE TABLE ................................................................................................................................ 27

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Table of Contents
Foreword ..................................................................................................................................... 2

Abstract ....................................................................................................................................... 3

Index of Abbreviations ................................................................................................................. 4

List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... 5

List of tables ................................................................................................................................. 5

1 GOAL AND SCOPE.................................................................................................................. 8

1.1 Goal of this study..................................................................................................................... 8

1.2 Scope of this study .................................................................................................................. 8

1.2.1 Functional Unit ................................................................................................................ 8

1.2.2 System Boundaries .......................................................................................................... 9

1.2.3 Geographical boundaries .............................................................................................. 10

1.2.4 Methodology ................................................................................................................. 11

1.2.5 Comparisons between systems ..................................................................................... 11

2 LCA INVENTORY ANALYSIS (LCI) ........................................................................................... 12

2.1 Data Collection ...................................................................................................................... 12

2.1.1 Methods ........................................................................................................................ 12

2.1.2 Data Quality and uncertainties...................................................................................... 13

2.1.3 Data collection results ................................................................................................... 14

2.2 Description of case insulations .............................................................................................. 14

2.2.1 Stone wool ..................................................................................................................... 15

2.2.2 Expended polystyrene ................................................................................................... 16

2.2.3 Glass Wool ..................................................................................................................... 18

2.3 Allocation............................................................................................................................... 19

3 LIFE CYCLE IMPACT ASSESSMENT (LCIA) ............................................................................... 19

3.1 Results ................................................................................................................................... 20

3.1.1 Glass Wool ..................................................................................................................... 20

3.1.2 EPS ................................................................................................................................. 22

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 3.1.3 Stone wool ..................................................................................................................... 23

3.2 Comparative analysis of the results ...................................................................................... 24

4 LIFE CYCLE INTERPRETATION ............................................................................................... 25

4.1 Evaluation of Results (Discussion) ......................................................................................... 25

4.2 Other studies and uncertainties ............................................................................................ 26

4.3 Further work .......................................................................................................................... 27

5 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 27

LITERATURE REVIEW .................................................................................................................. 28

Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 31

Appendix A – Mail Interviews ..................................................................................................... 33

Interview with Glava ......................................................................................................................... 33

Interview with Rockwool ................................................................................................................... 37

Appendix B – LCIA DATA ............................................................................................................. 40

Rock wool .......................................................................................................................................... 40

Glass wool.......................................................................................................................................... 41

EPS ..................................................................................................................................................... 42

Compare ............................................................................................................................................ 43

Appendix C – Phases of an LCA study .......................................................................................... 44

Methodological framework ............................................................................................................... 44

Description of methodological framework phases ........................................................................... 44

Shortly about LCA ISO standards ....................................................................................................... 45

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1 GOAL AND SCOPE

1.1 Goal of this study

Insulations are extremely important in today's building industry to save energy when heating and/or
cooling and therefore decrease costs and environmental impact. The overwhelming choices of
insulation can make it hard to choose the right one. A major motivation for the study was to simplify
the choice of insulation material in environmentally aware society.

The goal of this study is to perform an environmental study for thermal insulation. By exploring and
evaluating the environmental impact of each of the chosen insulation types, we want to find the
most attractive choice in this category and present possible improvements for processes and sub
processes in our system boundaries for further emission reduction.

The main research question therefore is:

“Which insulating materials are most suitable for local construction sites when taking environmental
aspects into account?”

The results are expected to be of interest for local private and commercial building sites who want to
find the insulation with best environmental properties. Although we have chosen geographical
boundaries for this study, making the local society the targeted audience, the results are relevant on
a global scale if transportation part of this rapport is filtered out.

We were also asked to share this study with chosen manufacturers of case products on its
completion.

1.2 Scope of this study

The scope of this study is to conduct an extended cradle to gate life cycle assessment (LCA) of three
common thermal insulation products. This LCA includes following stages: the raw material extraction
and transportation to the production site, manufacturing and transportation of the end product to
the chosen building site.

1.2.1 Functional Unit

For a fair comparative study, we had to define a functional unit that will equalize performance
characteristics of the chosen materials to each other. This can be achieved by choosing one square

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meter of material that gives same thermal resistant value in each case. The chosen functional unit in
this study is therefore 1m² of insulation with thermal resistance of R=1m² K/W. That leads to
different thicknesses for each insulation material. Thickness can be simply calculated by multiplying
following values: thermal resistance (R) and area of the material (A) with materials thermal
conductivity (λ). We will not perform the calculations inside this assessment and choose the
thicknesses from Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) for each material. EPD that we have used
in this assessment used same declare unit as our function unit.

We want to notice that our functional unit doesn’t consider other layers of construction materials
which can be added to an insulated wall. So, we are not studying a proper wall but only comparing
different insulation types.

1.2.2 System Boundaries

The focus of this assessment is the environmental impact of insulation materials with same
performance characteristics. Main sources of the emissions are located in first stages of the life cycle.
Although there is recycling possibilities of all three insulation materials, the recycling of the insulation
itself at the end of its life, is seldom implemented by the manufacturer and not implemented in case
of producers chosen for this study. Therefore, we will not include use and end of life stage in this
analysis, assuming there is little or no impact on the environment during those stages.

Our flow chart is based on life cycle stage specified by Environmental Product Declaration standard
EN 15804. Stages are used by most EPDs that are written for construction products (fig. 1).

Figure 1 Life cycle stages for the building assessment, EN 15804

Product stages included in this assessment:

 A1, raw material extraction and processing, processing of secondary material input (e.g.
recycling processes)

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  A2, transport to the manufacturer
 A3, manufacturing
 A4, transport to the building site

Illustrative flow chart was created to give a better understanding of the processes involved in the
production of insulation products and give a better overview of the chosen system boundaries for
this study (fig. 2).

Figure 2 Flow Chart and system boundary

Impact categories
This study is considering following impact categories, as they are most critical for the environment:
 Global Warming Potential (GWP)
 Abiotic Depletion (ADP)
 Ozone Depletion Potential (ODP)
 Acidification
 Eutrophication
Characterizations of those categories are further explained in assessment part of this paper.

1.2.3 Geographical boundaries

The geographical coverage of this study is mineral wool and EPS insulation manufacturing and
installation in Grimstad, Norway. Where it was appropriate, the European datasets was used to
collect data for extraction stage in SimaPro.

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 1.2.4 Methodology

The general framework of LCA consists of four interrelated phases: goal and scope definition; life-
cycle inventory (LCI); life-cycle impact assessment (LCIA) and interpretation. See Appendix C for
general explanation of LCI stages and their purposes.

We have used extended cradle to gate approach in our LCA that means that the approach is
extended with A4 process, which is transportation to the site. Since all environmental burdens within
the production life cycle are not considered, the system boundaries were clearly defined and
illustrated earlier in the Scope chapter.

All processes and impacts were normalized with respect to the functional unit.

Since this is a comparative study, we will be using percentages with which processes contribute to
the impact phases instead of comparing the weight of emissions. It will make a better reading
experience and simplify the interpretation process. However, we have included all the data in
Appendix B.

SimaPro was used under both LCI and LCIA phases. Data from SimaPro processes was used as
described in Data collection chapter. Under LCIA step the processes was modelled in SimaPro 8 for
each life stage of the product, with consideration given to resources and emissions used and
produced. We used CML-IA impact assessment method in our SimaPro study.

1.2.5 Comparisons between systems

As explained in the system boundaries, we will compare three insulations for the same life cycle, A1 –
A4. We will analyse each of insulation separately and then do a comparative study to compare the
different environmental impacts.
The comparison consists of different raw material used, different transportation distances for chosen
manufacturers and different emission during the production phase. This assessment study has to
compare these differences to be able to identify the most environmental friendly product on the
local marked.

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2 LCA INVENTORY ANALYSIS (LCI)

2.1 Data Collection

2.1.1 Methods

The information required to answer the main and sub research questions was collected by means of:
 Research
 Technical staff interviews
 LCA databases

Research
We have studied Environmental rapports, EPDs and scientific literature to find information about the
environmental, health and technical aspects of the insulating materials and to give us a better
understanding of the subject. We used assertions made by other authors to compare it to our result
and thereby increase reliability of this paper.

Technical staff interviews

To collect information about material composition, transport processes (A2, A4) and extraction
processes (A1), we have contacted technical staff of producers for the insulation materials.

Here is the list of companies that have been interviewed:

 Glava (Glass Wool, EPS)

 Rockwool (Stone Wool)
 Jackon (EPS)
 Hunton (Wood Fiber)

We did get some good insight from Glava and Rockwool (Appendix A), while Jackon and Hunton was
not so helpful. During the initial phase of material reweaving for this study we were considering
including the Wood Fibre in our LCA, but after slow and little useful responses and phone
conversation with the produce we decided to remove Wood fibre from our scope. It can also be
mentioned that both price and material thickness for wood fibre is of another level then our three
insulations (Price goes apr. 100% up, and thickness goes 30% up). Since we are considering only
commonly used insulations it can be argued whether the Wood wool should be a part of it. This
study does not include price data, but we will mention it couple of times throughout this rapport
while referring to data in M. Duijve study. [2]

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LCA databases
We used SimaPro processes for production of insulation composite materials in Europe (RER). We
decided not to adjust the electricity processes for production in Norway since materials are supplied
from different part of Scandinavia.

2.1.2 Data Quality and uncertainties

Detailed information on extraction and transportation stages was obtained in consultation with the
manufacturers (Glava, Rockwool). The data about processes inside the manufacturing stage was har
to get a hold of and data provided by EPDs created by manufacturers themselves was used. As far as
possible, primary data describing the quantities of materials insulation material was used

Missing data assumptions

Unfortunately, we could not obtain all the required data by previous three methods and had to do
some assumptions to fill in the data gaps (Fig. 3).

Figure 3 Data availability overview

Following assumptions was made:

We could not find data for Anorthosite extraction process (mineral that is used in stone wool
production). Since it is a widely spread magmatic rock and have comparable properties with Basalt
rock, we assumed that it will contribute approximately same amount of the emission to the
environment (although it has to be noted that it has slightly higher amount of silica it it). So, we just
added 26% of Anorthosite to 40% of basalt ending up with 66% of basalt in our composition. Diabase
was also included in 66% of Basalt, but Diabase rock is almost equivalent to the volcanic basalt that is
used.

Both Glava and Rockwool are using Euro Class 3 trucks for transportation with a payload 20-30 tones.
We could not find information about the transport used by raw material suppliers and based on the

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information from insulation manufacturer, chose EURO3 truck for all transportation tasks in our
study. Process in SimaPro: Transport, freight, lorry 16-32 ton, EURO3 (RER)

We could not get hold of data for the production process (A3) for Rock and Glass Wool and was
forced to use Emission data from the EPD [1, 3]. For EPS insulation, we used following process in
SimaPro: Polymer foaming (RER) processing. That is a heating up process that are used by
manufacturing in A3 stage of the product.

2.1.3 Data collection results

Overview (Table. 1) lists all the materials with values and properties used in this assessment. We
calculated weights using density and thickness that was specified by manufacturers in their EPD
documentation [3] [4] [5]. Fire class was also collected from EPDs. Table 2 list transportation data for
A1 and A2 processes. Composition of each insulation is described in the next chapter

Table 1: Definition of the functional unit for this study

Functional unit
Density Weight per m2 Corresponding Fire Class
Products (R value in
(kg/m3) (kg) thickness (mm) NEN‐EN13501
m²K/W)
Glass Wool 16.5 0,578 35 1,0 A1
Stone Wool 29 1,073 37 1,0 A1
EPS 15 0,57 38 1,0 F

Table 2: Transportation phase data

Transportation Distances (A2) in Distances (A4) in
Insulation type Raw materials
emission standard km km
Binder 480
Glass wool Silica sand Euro 3 330 265
Recycled glass 250
Phenol 300
Stone wool Basalt/Dolomit Euro 3 550 208
Slag 100
Expandable
EPS Euro 3 1200 265
polystyrene beads

2.2 Description of case insulations

This chapter gives a brief description about processes and sub processes of this study insulation
materials and their composition.
We have chosen following products to compare in this study as they are the most optimal choice for
the costumer considering price and its properties.

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Table 3 Products chosen for this study

2.2.1 Stone wool

General
Stone wool is used in buildings for thermal and phonic insulations; moreover, it is a good fire
protection. This insulation exists in different forms: flakes, rolls, semi-rigid and rigid panels, bare and
coated, single and double density panels.
Chosen producer for stone wool is Rockwool AS. The manufacturing factory is situated in Moss.

Composition of stone wool

Stone wool is composed of:
 Basalts (66%)
 Dolomite (13%)
 Slag (18%)
 Phenol formaldehyde (3%)

Basalt rock is solidified lava formed when rock melts underground and then quickly cools. Diabase
and Anorthosite rocks come from volcanic activity too. Dolomite rock is a sedimentary rock. These
rocks are extracted in Trondheim (550 km from the factory). Slag is the wastes of many metal
treating processes in other industries, it comes from local producers (maximum 100 km to the
factory). Phenol is a mineral binder that is used to “glue” mineral particles in stone wool together.
Phenol is purchased from local producers and the distance to the factory was estimated to be 300 km.
(see mails from Hans Joachim in appendix A).

Manufacturing process
The extraction phases take place in a quarry, for the basalt and dolomite rocks, it consists to remove
the most regular and largest blocks as possible, then, these blocks are partially crushed in the
quarry’s workshop. For the phenol formaldehyde, it production consists in synthesizing polymers by
heating them which releases the water present inside. Slags are waste product from other industries.

In the factory, rocks are placed on a screen to separate the bigger pieces from the fine particles. The
particles will be processed into briquettes which can be used in the production of stone wool along

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with the bigger pieces of rock. The briquettes and slag is then melted to lava. A spinning machine
whips the lava into thin strands of stone wool. After, the stone wool is ruled into a huge pendulum
device. The pendulum swings back and forward to lay the stone wool in a zig-zag pattern. The
number of layers varies, depending on the kind of insulation being made. The stone wool is then
compress, adding density to the wool and small quantities of phenol binder is added to hold stone
wool together. Then the product is heated to cure the binder to hold the wool shape. Then it travels
through a cooling zone and under a roller which squeezes it to make the fibres more flexible. Finally,
stone wool is cut to a standard size, marked by R value and company name and packed.

Figure 4 Flowchart for Stone wool

2.2.2 Expended polystyrene

General
Expanded polystyrene or EPS in short is a rigid and tough, closed-cell foam. This closed-cell structure
provides minimal water absorption and low vapor permanence. It is known for a low thermal
conductivity, high compressive strength and light weight. In addition, EPS allows for easy and safe
installation. The lifetime of this insulation is estimated to be more than 60 years and is 100%
recyclable.

Composition of EPS
EPS foams are made of polystyrene (95 % of total weight), blown with pentane up to 6 % of total
weight, which is released partly during or shortly after production. There are no other additives or
flame retardant used during the production.

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Recycling
Although todays EPS is 100% recyclable, it have to be noted that we did not include the recycling
process since it is not implemented in any meaningful scale by most of EPD producers. The reason is
that until 2008 expanded polystyrene (EPS) have been equipped with brominated flame retardant
hexabromocyclododecane (HBCDD), until it was identified by European Chemical Agency as a
Substance of Very High Concern (SVHC) due to its PBT properties (persistent, bio accumulative, toxic).
The content of HBCDD in majority of existing expended polystyrene insulation makes it more or less
meaningless to establish recycling process for this insulation. Since recycled products are not a part
of the production it is not implemented in this assessment.

Transportation
Raw materials (Expandable polystyrene beads) are purchased from BeWi located in Finnland or from
Unipol in Netherlands and transported by truck to the production site in Askim. Based on this
information the transportation distance between raw material suppliers and production site was
estimated to 1200 km.

Production
EPS is produced in a two-stage process starting from its resin form (raw beads).
These small polystyrene beads can absorb 4-7 % pentane gas, known as non-harmful gas for the
ozone layer. The pentane gas is what makes the material expand when heated. EPS resin expands up
to 50% of its original size. That´s why the final product contains around 98% air. [6]
The expanded pellets are then transferred into a block moulder. The more pellets per cubic meter,
the denser the product will be. Then the pellets are steam fused together molding them into a big
block which will be cut into various shapes and sizes.

Figure 5 Flowchart for EPS

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 2.2.3 Glass Wool

General
Glass wool is an insulating material made from glass fibers that is with the help of binder arranged
into a texture similar to wool. The process traps many small pockets of air between the glass, and
these small air pockets result in high thermal insulation properties.

Composition of Glass wool

Glass wool is composed of:
 Cullet (55%)
 Silica Sand (40%)
 Urea formaldehyde (5%)

Glava uses recycled glass from house holding and other industries as a main of their raw material for
production of glass wool. Recycling glass for Askim factory comes from two different plants. SGÅ
(Svensk Glas Återvinning) in Hammar, Sweden and Norsk Gjenvining AS in Fredrikstad (Øra), Norway.
Distance was approximated to 250 km for transportation of cullet. (see mail from Mads Rikardsen in
appendix A, dated 23. October 2017 11:59)

Natural sand is supplied to Glava by Brogårdsand plant in Habo, Sweden. Distance between the plant
and production site was set to 330 km.

Urea Formaldehyde resin is used in a small amount during production process as a binder for glass
wool fibre. Glava buys their binder from global manufacturer of moulding compounds and resins
Chemiplastica in Perstorp, Sweden. Distance between Chemiplastica and production site was set to
480 km. (see mail from Mads Rikardsen in appendix A, dated 23. October 2017 11:59)

Manufacturing process
Natural sand and recycled glass (Cullet) are mixed and heated to 1,400 °C, to produce glass. The
fiberglass is usually produced by a method similar to making cotton candy, by forcing it through a
fine mesh by centripetal force, cooling on contact with the air. Cohesion and mechanical strength are
obtained by the presence of a binder that “cements” the fibers together. A drop of bonder is placed
at each fiber intersection. The fiber mat is then heated to around 200 °C to polymerize the resin and
is calendared to give it strength and stability. Finally, the wool mat is cut and packed in rolls or panels,
palletized, and stored for use.

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Figure 6: Flowchart for Glass wool

2.3 Allocation

In our comparative LCA products does not share same processes so no allocation is needed for this
study. Allocation could be applied to recycling process for recyclable and not recyclable waste, but it
is outside of our system boundaries.

3 LIFE CYCLE IMPACT ASSESSMENT (LCIA)

The life cycle impact assessment was conducted in accordance with ISO 14040/44, considering
following impact categories: Global Warming Potential (GWP), Abiotic Depletion (ADP), Ozone
Depletion Potential (ODP), Acidification and Eutrophication. The characterization can be described as
follows:

Outputs to air:
 Carbon dioxide in kg of CO2 equivalent: linked to Global Warming calculated over a time
interval of 100 years. That means the equivalent of CO2 emitted to air. We can define as the
rising of the temperature due to emissions and build-up of greenhouses gases.
 Antimony in kg of Sb equivalent: linked to the abiotic depletion. This factor determines the
consumption of the natural resources. It deals with the conservation of the raw materials.
Abiotic depletion is said to be one of the most important factor to compare different
insulation.
 Methane in kg of CFC-11 equivalent, linked to Ozone layer depletion. It is the destruction of
the upper atmospheric layer of ozone gas

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Outputs to water:
 Sulphur dioxide in kg of SO2 equivalent, linked to acidification. It is the decrease of the pH of
the Earth’s oceans caused by the uptake of sulphur dioxide in the air and then in the
humidity going to oceans.
 Phosphate in kg of PO4 equivalent, linked to eutrophication. It means the nutritive pollution
generated by nitrogen and phosphorous compounds. It causes a growth of algae which then
consumes the oxygen dissolved in water.

3.1 Results

Our scope defines following phases of insulation life cycle and it is reflected in next three individual
analysis for each insulation:

1. Extraction (A1)
2. Transportation (A2)
3. Production (A3)
4. Transportation (A4)

We do detailed analysis of each product separately and then do a comparative study where we
compare emissions for all insulations. As previously mentioned we will not be talking about
emissions amount in units of weight but rather concentrate on the percentage for simple location of
the emission critical processes.

3.1.1 Glass Wool

From the SimaPro results shown in Fig. 7, we can safely conclude that production of binder (Urea
resin A1) and glass wool manufacturing process (Glass wool A3) is the phases that are responsible for
84 % of all emissions in our five impact phases. The shares are pretty equal, 41% goes to binder
extraction stage and 43% to manufacturing stage. It leaves following processes: glass recycling, silica
sand extraction and transportation responsible for the remaining 16% of emissions.

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Figure 7 : Emission data for each process of glass wool production

Overview of the biggest impacts:

Abiotic depletion: Urea formaldehyde resin production has a big impact on abiotic depletion for a
whole range of raw materials. Mainly for Copper, Cadmium, Molybdenum and Lead

Acidification: Urea formaldehyde resin production process also contributes greatly to acidification
through emissions of Sulphur Dioxide and Ammonia.

Ozone Layer Depletion: Most of emissions in this impact category belong to manufacturing process
because of methane release during glass melting.

Global Worming: Carbon dioxide emissions to air during the melting process in manufacturing phase.

Eutrophication: Phosphate migration to water during the melting process in manufacturing phase.

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 3.1.2 EPS

Figure 8 : Emission data for each process of EPS production

Figure 8 shows the relative percentage contribution to the processes (A1–A4) for each of chosen
impact categories.

Impact of the raw material extraction A1 turns out to be very important. It has in fact the highest
percentages all over, contribution of more than 80% in GWP and abiotic depletion and between 40
and 74% to other impacts. This is mainly due to the high energy demand for the extraction of the
materials and chemical processes during the A1 phase.

The contribution of the production stage A3 to the environmental impacts comes in second place
after A1. The percentages are between 35,3% (ODP) and 12,6% (GWP) with a high presence of abiotic
depletion, acidification and eutrophication with almost 20% each.

We can see that the impacts of the transportation A2 are bigger than A4 and this is exclusively due
to the difference in the travelled distances. The biggest effect of the transport stage is on the ozone
layer (21% and 3,5%) resulting surely from trucks emissions into air.
Transport stage has also a considerable impact of 12,5% on the eutrophication of water.
The effect on abiotic depletion is negligible for both A2 and A4 where the values are under 1%.

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 3.1.3 Stone wool

Figure 9 : Emission data for each process of stone wool production

For the abiotic depletion we can observe that the synthetisation of phenol (A1) have the biggest
impact (84%). The production of raw materials needs a lot of energy which is mainly produced by
fossil fuels.

For the global warming potential, the biggest emissions (91.5%) come from the manufacturing
process (A3) of stone wool. Big amount of energy is required for melting of minerals and slags and it
emits a lot of carbon dioxide.

The biggest part of the emission for the ozone layer depletion belongs to the manufacturing process
(A3) of stone wool (68%), and the second big is the transport process A2 (17%). For the production
it’s mainly due to the heat of rocks where it releases a lot of methane in the air. The transportation
by trucks emits fine particles and carbon dioxide that participate in ozone layer depletion.

Most of acidification impacts belong to two processes, the synthetisation of phenol (A1) and
transportation (A4) (33.7% for A2 and 13.6% for A4).

The only process which considerably impacts the eutrophication is the manufacturing process (A3),
under which the melting of slag contributes the most.

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3.2 Comparative analysis of the results

Comparing emissions of all insulation

88% 86%
90%
80%
70%
56%
60% 49%
50% 41% 42% 41%
40%
30% 24%
20%
17%
20% 8% 10% 8%
3% 6%
10%
0%
Abiotic depletion Global warming Ozone layer Acidification Eutrophication
(GWP100a) depletion (ODP)

EPS A1-A4 Glass Wool A1-A4 Rockwool A1-A4

Figure 10: Comparative emission of all insulations

At this stage we summed up emissions of all processes for each impact category of every insulation
and compared the results to each other. The result of this comparative assessment is summarized in
figure 10.

 Abiotic depletion
We can see that the EPS has an emission of more than 11 times the emissions of glass wool and
Rockwool. The production of polystyrene beads (A3) is the process which produces the most part of
EPS’s abiotic depletion emission.

 Global warming
The CO2 emission for the Stone wool produces most CO2 because of the heating of minerals at high
constant temperature during the production process (A3). EPS have lower emission of CO2, most of
which comes from EPS beads production step (A1).

 Ozone layer depletion

Rock wool and EPS have nearly the same value for this factor, for the EPS two processes have the
biggest impact (production of EPS beads [A1] and manufacturing of insulation [A3]). For stone wool
the manufacturing process (A3) have the biggest environmental impact.

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  Acidification
The acidification is due to the presence of sulphur dioxide in water. The contribution of EPS on
acidification is around 11 times higher than for glass and stone wool. It is mainly caused by the
production of expandable polystyrene beads (A1).

 Eutrophication
For this last impact category, emissions from stone wool production are twice as big as for the two
other insulations. This is due to the high phosphor migration to water during its manufacturing
process.

4 LIFE CYCLE INTERPRETATION

4.1 Evaluation of Results (Discussion)

Based on the comparative analysis (Fig 10) we can conclude that Glass Wool is clearly the best choice
among our three thermal insulations considering environmental impact. It loses only in one impact
category by 4% to EPS but still 26% better the stone wool. EPS is clearly the worst insulation, it has
ten-times higher impact in abiotic depletion and acidification then other choices. Rockwool
contributes the most to eutrophication because of highest amount of phosphate in raw materials
among our case insulations.

Binder production (A1) and manufacturing process shares most of the emissions for mineral wools.
While for EPS the manufacturing stage contributes with significantly smaller amount and most of
environmental impacts come from EPS beads production (A1).

The reason for Glass wool to become the winner (based on the comparative analysis) of this
assessment is because of its density which is almost twice as small as density of stone wool leading to
smaller amount of mineral fibre required for the production leading to lower environmental impact,
mainly due to less methane and CO2 equivalent particles released during the melting process.

Recycling

None of raw materials used for mineral wool (glass and stone wool) production are rear minerals and
therefore, does not contribute so much to abiotic depletion and easily available that also leads to
small emissions during the extraction. Therefore, the recycling of the insulations at their end of life
will not significantly contribute to the environmental impact reduction in scopes of our study, but it
can significantly reduce the emissions from waste products and contribute to increase of demand in
recycled products.

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EPS on the other hand have huge impact on the environment during its raw material production
process (A1). In fact, this process is responsible for ending up as the worst choice considering impact
categories of this study. The main reason for EPS not being recycled (while being 100% recyclable) is
because of the fire retardant that was until recently used by very majority of manufacturers and in
2008 it was identified by European Chemical Agency as a Substance of Very High Concern (SVHC) due
to its PBT properties (persistent, bio accumulative, toxic). Since almost all of existing Expandable
Polystyrene that is ready for recycling was produced before 2008, it makes the implementation of
recycling process for EPS a complicated task, but it can be done by separating fire retarded
hexabromocyclododecane HBCDD from polystyrene before recycling. [7]

Use of other binders for mineral wools

Production of phenol formaldehyde binder for stone wool and urea formaldehyde binders for glass
wool can be significantly reduced by replacing those binders with bio-based binder that does not
contain formaldehyde [8].

Compression capabilities

EPS does not compress while stone wool can compress approximately twice it size and Glass wool
can compress up to five times. That means that if one truck of glass wool is needed, it will take 5
trucks of EPS to insulate the same area.

Density of the materials

Density often plays an essential role in environmental impact of insulation products. When
comparing mineral wool insulation types, it is obvious that the one with higher density will lead to
higher emissions during the production phase because of higher amount of melted minerals and
therefore higher energy demand and more methane and CO2 equivalent particles release.

Fire resistance

Both glass and stone wool belong to fire class A1 making them safe to use with no need for special
percussions. EPS on the other hand have fire class E-F which makes it very flammable and special
percussions for ventilation and ways of installation should be carried out and may lead to further
increase contribution to environmental impacts during the installation and life phase.

4.2 Other studies and uncertainties

We had to make few assumptions in our study, that are described in detail in “Data quality and
uncertainties” chapter. We can say that it did not influence our assessment and gave reliable results

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for our comparative assessment, since we used same sources and assumption for all case material.
Our results and conclusion are also reflecting other studies on same subject. See literature review.

4.3 Further work

Further study should increase geographical boundaries and allow for more manufacturers to be
included, which will lead to quantities study and more reliable results.

Separate study of fire retardant separation process and production of formaldehyde free binder
production should be carried out for their easier further promotion.

Scope boundaries should be increased to cradle to grave and thorough study of recycling processes
and possibilities should be carried out while including wider range of impact categories than those
used in this study.

5 Conclusion
Glass wool have best or equal results all over except is eutrophication. Based on the comparative
analysis results and the interpretation chapter we can try to illustrate the results by creating a score
table for case insulations. Glass wool ended up with score of 9, which is much higher than EPS and
almost twice as high as stone wool.
Table 4 Insulation Score table

This study
Fire Improvement Recycling Total
Density Compression impact
Class Possibilities possibilities Score
score
Glass Wool 1 1 2 1 1 3 9
Stone Wool 0 1 1 1 1 1 5
EPS 1 0 0 1 0 0 2

Separation of fire retardant HBCD from EPS insulation should be considered in nearest future to
reduce the need of raw materials and environmental impact from wasting of all the Expanded
Polystyrene that was installed in the past.

For glass and stone wool, formaldehyde free material should replace binders used today. It will lead
to significant reduction in abiotic depletion and acidification impacts from binder production
processes.

Acknowledgement
The study was done under supervision of Reyn Joseph O'Born and with significant help from technical
staff of Glava AS and Rockwool AS companies.

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LITERATURE REVIEW

Comparative assessment of insulating materials on technical, environmental and health aspects for
application in building renovation to the Passive house level [2]

This paper was written by a student at Utrecht University in Netherland as a Master thesis. He sets
out to compare 8 different types of insulation to find the optimal choice for energy efficient product,
taking technical, environmental and health aspects into account. Four impact categories were
considered in this paper: Greenhouse gas emissions, Eutrophication potential, Acidification potential,
Ozone depletion.
The study concludes that Glass/Rock wool and EPS are the best insulation materials available today.
Pointing that EPS performs better from an environmental point of view. The paper reflects our
results, making the rock wool the worst choice (note: among the best choices) if we were to consider
only those four impact categories, but we disagree on that EPS is the most environmentally friendly
choice. That can be explained with that most of the emission for EPS comes from raw material
production phase (A1) which can be significantly reduced by introducing the recycling possibilities
which was done in this LCA but not in ours. Another think is that the abiotic depletion was not
included in this paper on which EPS have the biggest impact according to our study.

Comparative environmental life cycle assessment of thermal insulation materials of buildings [7]

A cradle to gate life cycle assessment comparing the most common thermal insulation materials
available in the Portuguese market respectively extruded polystyrene (XPS), expanded polystyrene
(EPS), polyurethane (PUR), expanded cork agglomerate (ICB) and expanded clay lightweight
aggregates (LWA) to understand their environmental impacts and the consumption of renewable and
non-renewable primary energy during the production of these materials.
Compared to our study, it was here concluded that EPS has the lowest impact on the environment
compared to the other insulation types. However, we both agreed that the extraction phase of this
material is the worst phase during the life cycle. For this case, expanded clay lightweight aggregates
(LWA) had the biggest environmental impact due to a high consumption of fossil fuel.
This paper was helpful to confirm our results regarding the EPS emissions. In addition, it was useful
to better understand the structure of a comparative LCA.

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A Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of Building Insulation Products made of Stone Wool, Paper
Wool and Flax [8]

The first part of this LCA is a cradle to gate assessment where each of the tree materials is studied
separately and results are interpreted regarding global and regional environmental impacts. The
comparison is presented in the second part of the study.
This study was quite helpful for us in terms of analysing the results of each material separately
before comparing them. However, our studies are differing from each other in a way that we are not
just comparing different insulation types but our studies is also based on different parameters.
According to this study, the production phase is not the most important to understand the impact of
the different materials on the environment, and that´s why recycling and end of life issues were a
well discussed part in this case. One of the goals was therefore to study all the possible disposal
methods and discuss the assets and drawbacks to try to find a better solution for the future. It was
concluded that incineration with energy recovery was the best disposal method and that landfilling
was the worst one because it contributes a lot in global warming. Furthermore, it was recommended
to reduce the binder content and flame retardant while producing the materials which can lead to a
lower energy consumption.

The Cumulative energy demand (CED) and cumulative CO2 emissions for products of the organic
chemical industry [9]

The goal of this study is to present the Cumulative Energy Demand (CED) and the related Cumulative
CO2 emissions (CCO2) of products of the organic chemical industry, starting with the extraction of
resources and ending with the final product after manufacturing. Data for the CED and the CCO2
emissions from cradle-to-factory gate in this paper reflects the situation in Germany in 1995.
We used this paper to understand the origin of the high emissions of EPS extraction and production.
In fact, we figured out that both the production of styrene (raw material) and of polystyrene (the
polymer) need quiet high energy inputs respectively 66.7 and 70.8 GJ/t product.
It´s important to mention that the available information in terms of CED and CCO2 contain many
uncertainties and need more analyse in the future.

Carbon footprint of a reflective foil and comparison with other solutions for thermal insulation in
building envelope [10]

This study took place in Italy and is a comparison between the production (raw material extraction
and manufacture) and installation phase of a reflective foil called Isoliving, EPS and stone wool in
terms of carbon footprint.

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It was concluded that EPS and stone wool production have a bigger impact on the environment and
this is directly related to the amount of the used material to achieve the same R-value.
Looking further and trying to compare the current results with ours, some differences are noticeable
regarding eutrophication and GWP. In fact, in this case EPS has a greater impact on the mentioned
parameters and this is due to the important impact of the installation phase, a matter we don´t take
into consideration in our study.

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Bibliography

[1] ROCKWOOL AS, “Environmental Product Declaration for Ston wool insulation,” 2013. [Online].
Available: http://www1.cenia.cz/www/sites/default/files/ROCKWOOL_EPD%20final.pdf.

[2] M. Duijve, “Comparative assessment of insulating materials on technical, environmental and

health aspects for application in building renovation to the Passive house level,” 2012. [Online].
Available: https://dspace.library.uu.nl/bitstream/handle/1874/258662/Melchert%20Duijve%20-
%20MSc%20Thesis%20-%20LCA%20insulation%20materials%20-%202012.pdf?sequence=1.

[3] Ernst Erik Krøger, EPS-gruppen, “Environmental Product Declaration for EPS isolasjon (trykklasse
80),” 2015. [Online]. Available:
http://epd.nsp01cp.nhosp.no/getfile.php/EPDer/Byggevarer/Isolasjon/NEPD-322-185-NO_EPS-
isolasjon--trykkfasthet-80----rev-June-2015.pdf.

[4] Thale Plesser, SINTEF, “Environmental Product Declaration for Glava glass wool,” 2012. [Online].
Available: http://epd.nsp01cp.nhosp.no/getfile.php/EPDer/Byggevarer/Isolasjon/NEPD-
221E_Glava_glass_wool.pdf.

[5] Torkel Wæringsaasen, ROCKWOOL AS, “Environmental Product Declaration for Rock Wool
insulation,” 2013. [Online]. Available:
http://epd.nsp01cp.nhosp.no/getfile.php/EPDer/Byggevarer/Isolasjon/NEPD-
00131E_rev1_ROCKWOOL-isolering%281%29.pdf.

[6] K. T. Yucel, C. Basyigit and C. Ozel, “Thermal insulation properties of expanded polystyrene as
construction and insulating materials,” [Online]. Available:
http://www.allbeton.ru/upload/mediawiki/760/thermal-insulation-properties-of-expanded-
polystyrene-as-construction-and-insulating-materials.pdf.

[7] M. Schlummera and Andreas Mäurera, “Recycling of flame retarded waste polystyrene foams,”
[Online]. Available:
https://www.synbratechnology.com/media/11693/fraunhoferwebsite_creasolv-processing-of-
hbcd-containing-polystyrene-from-construction-eps-1.pdf.

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[8] Ramji Srinivasan , Kurt Gabrielson and John B. Hines, “Formaldehyde free binder, Patent US
7795354 B2,” 2010. [Online]. Available: https://www.google.com/patents/US7795354.

[9] Nuno Pargana, Manuel Duarte Pinheiro, José Dinis Silvestre and Jorge de Brito, “Comparative
environmental life cycle assessment of thermal insulation materials of buildings,” 2014. [Online].
Available: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378778814005842.

[10] Anders C. Schmidt , Allan A. Jensen, Anders U. Clausen, , Ole Kamstrup, and Dennis
Postlethwaite, “A comparative Life Cycle assessment of building insulation products made of
stone wool, paper wool and flax,” 2003. [Online]. Available:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02978536.

[11] M. Patel, “Cumulative energy demand (CED) and cumulative CO2 emissions for products of the
organic chemical industry,” 2003. [Online]. Available:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544202001664.

[12] Stefania Proietti, , Umberto Desideri, Paolo Sdringola and Francesco Zepparelli, “Carbon
footprint of a reflective foil and comparison with other solutions for thermal insulation in
building envelope,” 2013. [Online]. Available:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261913001050#!.

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Appendix A – Mail Interviews
Interview with Glava

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Interview with Rockwool

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Appendix B – LCIA DATA
Rock wool
Data inputs

Analyze results

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Glass wool
Data inputs

Analyze results

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EPS
Data inputs

Analyze results

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Compare

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Appendix C – Phases of an LCA study
Methodological framework
This appendix gives a short description of LCA phases in accordance with ISO standard. The main stages of LCA is
represented with following framework:

Figure Appendix C-1. Main Life cycle assessment stages.

Description of methodological framework phases

Goal and scope phase

This phase can be further splitted into Goals and Scope phases.

The goal definition is the first step of any life cycle assessment. Its purpose is to explaining goals of the study
(obviously ), intended use of the results, the persons involved or concerned and the intended audience. Reasons
for why the LCA being carried out should be clearly explained in this first step.

During the scope definition step of the LCA study, the exact product(s) is identified and defined in detail. Main part
of the scope definition and justify chosen system boundaries, the methodology, quality of the assessment and
chosen way of reporting. It must be done in accordance with stated goals.

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Life cycle inventory analysis phase (LCI)

During the life cycle inventory phase the actual data collection is to be done. It is usually the most time consuming
phase of the LCA study. It is usual to adjust the goal and scope after identifying issues during the inventory analysis.
The LCI results are the input to the next, LCIA phase.

Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA)

Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) is the phase in an LCA where all the data that have been collected and reported
in the inventory are translated into impact indicator results related to human health, natural environment, and
resource depletion. The impact categories can differ from LCA to LCA and must be identified during the scope phase.

The aim of this phase can also be described as follows: “evaluating the significance of potential environmental
impacts using the LCI results” (ISO 14040 2006).

Life cycle interpretation

The life cycle interpretation is where we interpret all the information gathered during inventory analysis (LCI) and
impact assessment (LCIA) phases. With another words, that is the phase of LCA where the results of other phases are
considered collectively and analysed answering the questions posed in the goal and scope phase.

The interpretation phase usually includes the conclusion and recommendation for the possible improvements and
reduction of the impacts.

For more information and guidelines for preparation of Life Cycle Assessment see ISO 14040 and ISO 14044
standards. Short description of LCA standards follows.

Shortly about LCA ISO standards

ISO 14044 together with ISO 14040 is the leading standard for Life Cycle Assessment today, it was prepared by
Technical Committee ISO/TC 207. The main purpose of this standard is to provide guidelines for Life cycle analysis, where all

four phases of Life Cycle Assessment framework is thoroughly described. Framework consists of following steps:

Goal and scope of the LCA (Old ISO 14041)

Life cycle inventory analysis (LCI) phase (Old ISO 14041)
Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) phase (Old ISO 14042)
Life cycle interpretation phase (Old ISO 14043)

ISO 14044 together with new ISO 14040 erased three old standards that described LCA phase separately, they are
mentioned in parenthesis above.
Phases are splitter in different steps, like LCIA consist of Data Collection, Data Validation, Calculation procedures,
Allocation principles and more

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