Sustainable Retrofit of Existing Buildings: Impact Assessment of Residual Fluorocarbons through Uncertainty and Sensitivity Analyses

Gianluca Maracchini (), Rocco Di Filippo, Rossano Albatici, Oreste S. Bursi and Rosa Di Maggio ()
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Gianluca Maracchini: Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile, Ambientale e Meccanica (DICAM), Università di Trento, 38123 Trento, Italy
Rocco Di Filippo: Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile, Ambientale e Meccanica (DICAM), Università di Trento, 38123 Trento, Italy
Rossano Albatici: Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile, Ambientale e Meccanica (DICAM), Università di Trento, 38123 Trento, Italy
Oreste S. Bursi: Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile, Ambientale e Meccanica (DICAM), Università di Trento, 38123 Trento, Italy
Rosa Di Maggio: Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile, Ambientale e Meccanica (DICAM), Università di Trento, 38123 Trento, Italy

Energies, 2023, vol. 16, issue 7, 1-22

Abstract: Fluorocarbons are an important category of greenhouse gas emissions, and currently, their use is prohibited due to their significant contribution to the global ozone depletion potential (ODP). During this century, they will continue to emit greenhouse gases into the environment since they are present in the thermal insulation foam and HVAC systems in existing buildings; however, proper disposal of these banks of CFCs/HFCs from existing buildings can limit their effects on the environment. However, there are no studies that have investigated quantifying the achievable environmental savings in this case. In this study, a comparative life cycle assessment (LCA) is conducted to evaluate, for the first time in the literature, the environmental savings achievable through the removal and disposal of CFC/HFC banks from buildings including damage-related emissions. To cope with the scarcity of data, uncertainty and sensitivity analysis techniques are applied. The results show that, for the selected archetype building, the largest annual emissions of CFCs/HFCs come from the external thermal insulation of the envelope. The removal of this material can lead to an additional significant reduction in the GWP (up to 569 kgCO 2 eq/m 2 ) and the ODP (up to 117 × 10 −3 kgCFC-11eq/m 2 ), i.e., higher than that achievable by reducing energy consumption through energy retrofit measures (276 and 0, respectively). Thus, CFC/HFC banks should not be neglected in LCA studies of existing buildings due to their possible significant impact on a building’s ecoprofile.

Keywords: environmental retrofit; energy retrofit; life cycle assessment (LCA); fluorocarbon; HFC; CFC; uncertainty analysis; sensitivity analysis; natural hazards; performance-based earthquake engineering (PBEE) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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