UNCORRECTED PROOF Chapter 70 The Greening of Foam Insulating Materials Considering Their Life Cycle and Effective Thermal Properties Umberto Berardi Abstract The construction industry has a large environmental impact considering 1 the building material manufacturing, construction, operations, and decommissioning. 2 Not surprisingly, there is an increasing request to reduce this significant environ- 3 mental impact through the use of materials with low global warming potential (GWP), 4 which could also guarantee efficient building operation. Insulating materials reduce 5 the building energy demand, but they have a negative environmental impact for the 6 raw material extraction, transportation, manufacturing, and end-of-life disposal. This 7 article focuses on closed cell foam materials and present recent advancements in the 8 fourth generation of blowing agents. The article also discusses the importance of 9 considering the effective thermal conductivity to account for the in-field long-term 10 performance of these insulating materials. The aim of this paper is to promote a more 11 holistic thinking about the characteristics of foam insulating materials. 12 Keywords Global warming potential · GHG · Green foams · Insulating materials 13 70.1 Introduction 14 Traditional insulating materials can be divided into two groups: the materials that 15 contain or trap air to obtain high thermal resistance values, such as fibrous insulation 16 and open cell foams, and the materials that trap a blowing agent, i.e. a gas with lower 17 thermal conductivity than air. This last family of materials aim to retain the blowing 18 gas for as long as possible to keep their thermal properties to remain stable. 19 Blowing agents have a continuous impact throughout the life cycle of a material 20 as often the blowing gas leaves the material through the entire life of the mate- 21 rial. Facings or coverings is hence beneficial to lower the GWP of foams (Berardi 22 2018). However, the effect of facing depends on the type of the finishing (paper face, 23 fibreglass matt, foil, etc.). 24 U. Berardi (B ) Department of Architectural Science, Ryerson University, Toronto, ON, Canada e-mail: uberardi@ryerson.ca © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 L. L. Wang et al. (eds.), Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Building Energy and Environment, Environmental Science and Engineering, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9822-5_70 1 530223_1_En_70_Chapter  TYPESET DISK LE  CP Disp.:27/4/2023 Pages: 9 Layout: T1-Standard Author Proof