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ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT OF ENERGY SAVING MEASURES IN BUILDINGS BY SIMAPRO8 SOFTWARE

2017; Ukrainian National Forestry University; Volume: 27; Issue: 7 Linguagem: Inglês

10.15421/40270702

2519-2477

Lyudmyla Zahvoyska, Mariia Fedoruk,

Sustainability and Innovation in Business

Energy efficiency of buildings is a global problem. The energy sector itself poses great challenges for most countries, especially with the present financial and environmental circumstances and the need to enhance economic development while meeting climate change goals. Investing in renovation of existing buildings provides excellent opportunities for an effective reduction of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, delivering to the Sustainable Development Goals and reducing climate risk in line with the Paris Agreement. The authors propose the analysis of the environmental impacts of an investment of buildings energy saving measures. We based our case study of energy saving refurbishment of preschool N5 in Myrhorod using the life cycle assessment (LCA) technique. Researchers applied this comparative analysis to measure environmental impacts of the project in eco-points. The studies considered various components, such as heat sources, thermal insulation and materials of the new windows. Using the SimaPro 8 software, environmental impacts for the case study building without refurbishment, with thermo isolation and with new windows were calculated and compared. The research results show considerable and variable environmental impact of energy saving measures depending on materials and techniques that were used for refurbishment. These findings indicate the need for further methodological support for the development of integrated socio-environmental-economic indicators. Researchers suggest doing comparative LCA analysis of retrofitting solutions for assessing various options for energy saving investments applying multi-criteria methodology based on these indicators. This method could be useful for the state authorities, international funds, investors and energy/environmental auditors.