The Role of Green Building Materials in Reducing Environmental and Human Health Impacts

Seyed Meysam Khoshnava, Raheleh Rostami, Rosli Mohamad Zin, Dalia Štreimikienė, Abbas Mardani and Mohammad Ismail
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Seyed Meysam Khoshnava: UTM Construction Research Centre, Institute for Smart Infrastructure and Innovative Construction, School of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Johor 81310, Malaysia
Raheleh Rostami: Department of Architecture, Sari Branch, Islamic Azad University, Sari 4816119318, Iran
Rosli Mohamad Zin: School of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Johor 81310, Malaysia
Dalia Štreimikienė: Lithuanian Institute of Agrarian Economics, A. Vivulskio g. 4A-13, 03220 Vilnius, Lithuania
Abbas Mardani: Informetrics Research Group, Ton Duc Thang University, Ho Chi Minh City 758307, Vietnam
Mohammad Ismail: School of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Johor 81310, Malaysia

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 7, 1-22

Abstract: Conventional building materials (CBMs) made from non-renewable resources are the main source of indoor air contaminants, whose impact can extend from indoors to outdoors. Given their sustainable development (SD) prospect, green building materials (GBMs) with non-toxic, natural, and organic compounds have the potential to reduce their overall impacts on environmental and human health. In this regard, biocomposites as GBMs are environmentally friendly, safe, and recyclable materials and their replacement of CBMs reduces environmental impacts and human health concerns. This study aims to develop a model of fully hybrid bio-based biocomposite as non-structural GBMs and compare it with fully petroleum-based composite in terms of volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions and human health impacts. Using a small chamber test (American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM)-D5116) for VOC investigation and SimaPro software modeling with the ReCiPe method for evaluating human health impacts. Life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology is used, and the results indicate that switching the fully hybrid bio-based biocomposite with the fully petroleum-based composite could reduce more than 50% impacts on human health in terms of indoor and outdoor. Our results indicate that the usage of biocomposite as GBMs can be an environmentally friendly solution for reducing the total indoor and outdoor impacts on human health.

Keywords: sustainable development; green building materials; biocomposite; life cycle assessment; human health; volatile organic compounds (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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