12. Building materials

The grey energy content of building materials can be found in several sources.

New buildings are increasingly energy-efficient during their operational phase. This is largely due to better insulation, imposed by increasingly stringent thermal regulations that require builders to comply with maximum thermal consumption limits. The latest of these, RT 2012 (Réglementation Thermique 2012), requires consumption of less than 50 kWh/m ² per year. Buildings have an average lifespan of around a century, and account for the bulk of our real estate stock. While some 300,000 to 400,000 new homes are built in France every year, there are some...