Embodied Carbon Values in Common Insulation Materials
Embodied Carbon Values in Common Insulation Materials
By
On
Share
Like many architects, we have begun to pay much closer attention to the embodied carbon associated with the materials we are specifying. All other things being equal, selecting a material with a lower global warming potential (GWP) is preferable. However, at this early stage, not many of us have a strong intuitive sense of how meaningful various GWP values might be – e.g. is 223 kgCO2e/m2 of insulation good or bad?
We performed a study to compare the embodied carbon values for nine commonly used types of insulation with the goal of presenting the results in a relatable way. The insulation products considered include two brands of XPS, two brands of next-gen XPS, Polyiso, Rockwool, Neopor GPS, fibreglass batts, and blown cellulose.