Environmental assessment of mineral wool manufacturing

The excessive energy consumption by the building sector poses an important task for the energy sustainability. On this account, the European regulatory framework established several strategies in order to reach the EU target for nearly zero-energy new buildings and retrofitting of outdated existing buildings. The application of the thermal insulation panel is perceived as the efficient way towards thermal stability of buildings. From the environmental point of view, an increased thermal performance of buildings is strongly connected with the consumption of fossil fuel and this step represents a significant progress. However, the initial environmental loads accompanied with the production of various thermal insulation materials is usually neglected within these considerations, despite their energy demanding manufacturing. This paper summarizes the environmental burden related to the production of mineral wool as a very often used building insulation material with emphasis on carbon dioxide emissions. Enumerated carbon dioxide emissions related to the material production are helpful for the total environmental assessment of retrofitting of building envelopes.