Sustainable construction

The latest publications in this offer are:

• April 17, 2026

  C8124 Reviewed

  Bio-based building materials and temporary carbon storage

  Nowadays, in the research of long-term solutions to limit the earth global warming due to green-house gas (GHG), the construction and building sector can play an important role. The setting of bio-based materials in new buildings or for renovation seems a reliable way of sustainability and tempo-rary carbon storage.This paper aims at analyzing the physical phenomena and issues, by taking into account the moment and duration of the GHG storage and emissions: which type of bio-based material: agro-ressource or wood ; which lifespan for the buildings and the materials ; amount of carbon uptake in each plant, dissolution kinetics of GHG; which end of life scenario.

• April 10, 2025

  BE9020

  Energy management in buildings

  Current environmental constraints make it imperative to strictly control energy in buildings. This chapter presents the basics needed to understand the issues and phenomena related to the use of energy in buildings. Several technical approaches are then reviewed, so as to concretely explain some solutions contributing to this control, emphasizing the approach inherent in the implementation of each of these solutions. Regulatory aspects (regularly updated) are finally presented, in order to contextualize the techniques presented previously.

• February 10, 2025

  C8103

  Building energy software tools and energy consumption

  Our society is increasingly concerned about the environmental impact of our activities. We now know that this impact is mainly due to energy overconsumption. Buildings, which are our primary concern, are responsible for 25% of greenhouse gas emissions and 40% of energy consumption in France. Consequently, tools have been created to design low-carbon and energy-efficient building projects. These thermal modeling tools are different from regulatory tools, and are named dynamic thermal simulation tools. These tools are also used to ensure energy results based on actual consumption.

• February 3, 2025

  G5500 Reviewed

  Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) - Overview, methodology, applications and limitations

  The life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a comparative tool for environmental assessment of any human activity. The realization of an LCA takes place in four stages: goals definition, inventory of input and output, assessment of potential impacts on the environment and interpretation. The objective of this article is to present this tool in an exhaustive and synthetic way. This article first presents the LCA history. It then describes the main methodological steps. The last parts focus on its applications and limitations.

• November 10, 2024

  BE8579

  Photovoltaic Electricity: Materials and Markets

  The ever-increasing demand for energy combined with global warming have been the driving forces toward the development of the most efficient photovoltaic cells, and the search for innovative processes to drastically reduce manufacturing costs. This article reports on the value chain of several photovoltaic cell manufacturing technologies, some of which are already on the market, while others are still at the research stage or at best being developed by start-ups. These include crystalline and amorphous silicon cells, or a combination of the two. Inorganic thin-film cells (CdTe, CIGS, GaAs...), organic thin-film cells (polymers, small molecules) and organic-inorganic hybrid cells (DSSC, perovskites) are also covered.

• March 10, 2022

  BE9850

  Technical insulation: Thermal insulation of equipment

  Technical insulation consists, by definition, of insulating equipment in industrial installations or buildings, in order to avoid heat loss. This makes it possible, among other things, to protect these installations against external disturbances such as frost, condensation, but also to conserve thermal energy and therefore limit greenhouse gas emissions. After the description of thermal principles and physical phenomena, this article details the methods for efficiently carrying out thermal insulation of equipment. The different insulating materials and examples of calculations are also presented.

• July 21, 2021

  C8120 Reviewed

  The modelling of the comfort in the open and semi-open spaces

  Modeling comfort in semi-open spaces, in variable ambient conditions and where occupancy can be transient, requires a greater degree of detail than that generally used in buildings. The classic approaches in permanent regimes of the Predicted Mean type have proved unsuitable for such environments, and so we resort to a transient model of human metabolism. In this article we present an indicator of comfort based on such a model, and the influence of physiological variability on it.

• July 21, 2021

  AM3601 Reviewed

  Recyclable polymers for the plaster manufacturing

  Compared with mortars, incorporating polymers under the form of aggregates in cast is a less known and used method. This article presents recent advances in order to manufacture lightweight plasterboards via the addition of recycled polymers. The good compatibility of these two compounds allows for achieving mechanical strength as well as improved sound insulation and thermal properties. Various criteria concerning formulations have thus been established in order to comply with construction standards.

• July 21, 2021

  AM3600 Reviewed

  Use of recycled polymers in mortars and concretes

  Sustainable development has become one of the major themes guiding the development of new construction materials. Synergies between materials are thus increasingly sought after, particularly where one of the material has been recycled. The use of recycled polymers in mortars and concretes enable the improvement of their final properties, notably in terms of thermal and acoustic properties.

• January 10, 2021

  G1513

  Indoor Air Quality : landmarks and legal framework - Workplaces indoor air

  Indoor air pollution is a more recent concern in public policy than outdoor pollution. Nevertheless, our lifestyles lead us to live in confined spaces most of our time, while the effects on health of poor air quality can range from simple discomfort to the development of pathologies that can be serious or worth: lethal. In the workplaces, there are specific regulations based mainly on the building owner and on the employer.

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