A review of life-cycle assessment of windows

Buildings and building components, particularly windows, have been the subject of numerous studies seeking to recognize and quantify the environmental impacts caused by processes in the product life cycle. Life-cycle assessment (LCA) has provided a systematic scheme for evaluation and comparison of environmental burdens of complex production processes. The design of windows LCAs reflects two distinct considerations, the comparison of manufacturing effects caused by various frame materials as well as the justification of increased manufacturing effects for improved performance during use. In all LCAs that considered frame materials, wood had lower embodied energy than the market alternatives, PVC and aluminum (Citherlet et al. 2000, Asif et al. 2002, Menzies and Muneer 2003, Recio et al. 2005). Salazar and Sowlati (2008) did note that contemporary frame systems, PVC, aluminum clad wood, and fiberglass, are all comparable in cradle-to-gate emissions and that the primary determinant of a life cycle advantage stems from a longer service life and lower replacement frequency. The inclusion of use-phase
energy amounts showed the relative insignificance of frame production (Entec 2000) and justified the increased resource use during manufacturing to achieve improved energy performance during occupancy (Citherlet et al. 2000, Asif et al. 2002, Kiani et al. 2004, Syrrakou et al. 2005).

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