LCA Analysis of Three Types of Interior Partition Walls Used in Buildings

Numerous studies have been done with the purpose of identify and try to reduce the impact generated by the construction industry, mainly focused on the use stage in the search to increase the energy efficiency. However, as these stage has been improved and the impact produced has been reduced, it has become evident the need to focus the research on the elements and life cycle stages that follow on the affectation scale. Therefore, the present research analyzes the importance of the embodied energy and the affectation generated by the materials with a LCA perspective, comparing one square meter of three different systems used as interior partition walls: hollow clay brick (HB), hollow concrete block (CB) and gypsum board (GB). The analyzed stages are from production of the materials to the building construction (stages A1–A5), using the Eco-invent database with the LCA manager software. The results of the analysis indicate the values of the environmental affectations and the consumptions made by each element during the analyzed stages. The comparison allowed to find that the constructive solution with mayor environmental affectation in the analyzed categories is the GB wall, and that is mostly done in the production stage (A1–A3).