Environmental impact of acoustic materials in residential buildings

This study examines the differences in environmental impact between various architectural acoustic materials in residential buildings, considering both embodied and operational Ecopoints using Envest. Five building types were compared, including bungalow, detached, semi-detached, terraced, and apartments. For each building type, two typical wall materials (brick and stone) which have a similar sound transmission loss, and three levels of glazing ratio were compared. For the apartment building, further analysis was made considering three wall types (brick, concrete and glass curtain), two roof types (pitched and flat) and different numbers of storeys (2–4). More detailed analysis was then carried out for two typical rooms, a living room and a bedroom, considering different combinations of interior finishing materials, but with the same reverberation time and sound transmission loss. The results of this study demonstrate the importance of considering the environmental sustainability of various acoustic materials. Although individual components may not affect the total Ecopoints greatly, when every acoustics-related component in a building is taken into account, significant differences in Ecopoints could be made with a better selection of architectural acoustic materials/components from the viewpoint of environmental sustainability, so that the environmental impact could be reduced to the minimum while the acoustic performance is kept the same.