Indoor air quality as an impact category in life cycle assessment of building materials: the case study of indoor paints

Building environmental performance evaluation should make use of a life cycle assessment(LCA) approach, by considering all building process phases: raw material acquisition,manufacture, transportation, construction, use or operation, decommissioning, disposal andre-use. Such an approach is intended to measure, not only impacts on natural and non-naturalresources but also building indoor environmental quality (IEQ). In many cases, buildingrunning phase, that is maintenance operations, is strongly related to health, safety and wellbeingstandards and requirements, which assure minimum IEQ levels. This category includesindoor walls maintenance and the related painting results of extension phase.This paper deals with a procedure for the calculation of material and energy flows relatedto seven selected indoor paints and varnishes; the calculation takes into account theenvironmental impact of both production and usage phases. It includes the supposedincreased ventilation rates effective in reducing indoor air pollutants from paints andvarnishes, the degree of increase depending on the exposure reduction necessary for the mosttoxic of the pollutants. The increased energy consumption produces an environmental impactthat will flow on from using higher ventilation rates.The aim of the paper is to outline a methodology that could be assumed as a guideline in aLCA easily to be updated whenever new information and database will be available. Whatwill be described in the paper are partial results of building environmental and energeticperformance system (BEEPS) programme, carried out by University La Sapienza of Rome incooperation with Italian Environmental Ministry.