Life Cycle Assessment of Fiberglass Building Materials in Kuwait

Rawan Al-Sammar and Esra Aleisa

Abstract

Air conditioning (AC) is responsible for more than 70% of the electricity consumption in the summer. This study conducts an environmental assessment on fiberglass (FG) rooms focusing on the AC requirements and energy consumption. The boundary of the study includes building materials, construction of the room structure, which consists of the foundation, wall, floor and roof, and the use phase for energy consumption on AC. The environmental analysis using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach involved evaluating the following categories: climate change human health (CCHH), ozone depletion (OD), fossil fuel depletion (FD), and metal depletion (MD), during the construction of an FG room versus an autoclaved aerated concrete (AAC) room to identify opportunities for reducing energy consumption. The operation phase energy consumption of the FG and AAC scenarios was found to be 8174.7- and 5274-kilowatt hour (kWh) per year, respectively. With reference to the single-score evaluation, the CCHH had the highest impact in both scenarios mainly caused by electricity used to operate the AC.