Preliminary Assessment of Greenhouse Gas Emissions for Atactic Polypropylene (APP) Modified Asphalt Membrane Roofs

Abstract

In recent years, there has been an increased awareness about the environmental impact of buildings and construction materials with increasing regulatory pressure to reduce this impact. Properly assessing this impact is the first step towards achieving a green construction sector. Asphalt roofs are an important component of the construction sector in the United States. GaBi®, a life cycle assessment (LCA) software package, was used to evaluate the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of an atactic polypropylene (APP) asphalt roofing product. Due to the complexity of the manufacturing process, an average approach where the raw materials and energy use to manufacture the product over an entire year were summed up and the results were normalized per functional unit of the product. Global warming potential (GWP) was used to evaluate the overall GHG emissions. The GHG emissions were estimated to be 75.2kg CO2-eq per roll. The manufacturing stage was found to be responsible for a majority of the GHG emissions. Certain shortcomings in the LCA study were identified and suggestions to reduce GHG emissions were made. This study differs from previous studies on roofs in that it focuses on the environmental impact of roofing product itself, unlike previous studies that have investigated energy efficiencies or reduction of environmental impact as part of a larger study. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd.

Department(s)

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Keywords and Phrases

Asphalt roof; Atactic polypropylene (APP); Building; Greenhouse gas emissions; Life cycle assessment

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

0360-1323

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2024 Elsevier, All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Jan 2014

Link to Full Text

Share

 
COinS