The problem is of particular concern for building industry, which undoubtly is the sector with one of the highest environmental impact.
In Europe, the costruction industry takes up about 45% of the energy produced every year while consuming about 50% of natural resources and producing about 50% of total solid waste and air pollution produced. To this aim, it is very important to adopt an efficient energy saving policy and to promote the use of alternative sources of raw materials.
The final goal is to achieve a sustainable balance between an "abused" environment and the achieved level of comfort that can not be given up. Therefore, building industry should in particular focus on the use of techniques and materials that allow the reduction of power consumption and emissions.
In the case of construction materials, the longevity of buildings, usually exceeding 50 years, increases significantly the eco-efficiency of materials, defined as the ratio between functional performances and environmental impact. Therefore, the contribution of plastic materials to sustainable development, and in particular to energy saving, makes their use as building materials, particularly profitable both in terms of eco-sustainability and business.
In the case of construction materials, the longevity of buildings, usually exceeding 50 years, increases significantly the eco-efficiency of materials, defined as the ratio between functional performances and environmental impact. Therefore, the contribution of plastic materials to sustainable development, and in particular to energy saving, makes their use as building materials, particularly profitable both in terms of eco-sustainability and business.
The extremely low environmental impact associated with production, application and disposal of polyurethanes foams of the latest generation, expanded only with water, combined with the well known insulating properties resulted in an Ecopoint value of 0.071, granted by the "Green Guide to Specification", with ODP (Ozone Depletion potential) and GWP (Global Warming Potential) negligible values. Polyurethane polymerization reaction is exothermic thus requiring reduced energy consumption and resulting in limited gas emissions. The resulting foams are light-weighted (30-40 kg/m3 for construction materials), long lasting and offer superior performances in terms of thermal insulation. Moreover, the embedded energy of polyurethane is easily amortized during the first year and after 50 years of examination the energy saving is more than 80 times the initial value. At the end of its life cycle, polyurethane can be recycled either to give fillers for agglomerates and concrete, or incinerated to give energy.
Polycard polyols, derived from cardanol have more than 90% renewable content and are designed for rigid and flexible, water expanded, polyurethane formulations. The resulting foams have excellent mechanical and insulating properties for spray and panel applications.
The well known advantages of using polyurethane in costructions combined with renewability and low environmental impact make Polycard based foams the best products to eco-friendly increase the energetic efficiency of a building.
