Biobased Building Materials: Resources for a bright future in housing?

Mieke Oostra, Michael Sailer

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaperAcademic

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Abstract

In the housing market enormous challenges exist for the retrofitting of existing housing in combination with the ambition to realize new environmentally friendly and affordable dwellings. Bio-based building materials offer the possibility to use renewable resources in building and construction. The efficient use of bio-based building materials is desirable due to several potential advantages related to environmental and economic aspects e.g. CO2 fixation and additional value. The potential biodegradability of biomaterials however demands also in-novative solutions to avoid e.g. the use of environmental harmful substances. It is essential to use balanced technological solutions, which consider aspects like service life or technical per-formance as well as environmental aspects. Circular economy and biodiversity also play an im-portant role in these concepts and potential production chains. Other questions arise considering the interaction with other large biomass users e.g. food production. What will be the impact if we use more bio-based building materials with regard to biodiversity and resource availability? Does this create opportunities or risks for the increasing use of bio-based building materials or does intelligent use of biomass in building materials offer the possibility to apply still unused (bio) resources and use them as a carbon sink? Potential routes of intelligent usage of biomass as well as potential risks and disadvantages are highlighted and discussed in relation to resource efficiency and decoupling concept(s).
Original languageEnglish
Publication statusPublished - 2016
EventSustainable Housing 2016 - Porto, Portugal
Duration: 16 Nov 201618 Nov 2016

Conference

ConferenceSustainable Housing 2016
Abbreviated titleSH2016
Country/TerritoryPortugal
CityPorto
Period16/11/1618/11/16

Keywords

  • Biobased Building Materials
  • Circular Economy

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