the life cycle performance of sustainable renovation concepts

1. BACKGROUNDThis chapter describes the background of the research.1.1 INTRODUCTIONSustainability and a sustainable built environment is an increasing economic and socialsubject. Important aspects of this subject are the continuous increasing use of energyand materials on earth. Material use results in depletion of resources and energy useresults in depletion of resources and CO 2 emission. CO 2 emission on its turn is consideredto be the main cause of climate change on earth (Olivier, van den Berg & Peters, 2000 &NEAA, 2008). In December 2008 the European Union agreed on a plan which containsimportant targets concerning sustainability. Important aspects of this plan are the targetsto reduce CO 2 emissions by 30% in 2020, compared with the CO 2 emission in the year1990, and to increase the share of renewable energy to 20% of the total energyproduction in the Netherlands. On the 19 th of December 2009, the UN ClimateConference in Copenhagen was ended. This conference was organized to set up globaljuridical committing measures against global heating and climate change, as successor ofthe Kyoto-protocol from 1997. Despite the intentions, the conference ended up in adisappointment. The U.S.A., China en other large upcoming economies have only madesome non-committing agreements against climate change. (www.europa-nu.nl)THE BUILT ENVIRONMENTAn analysis of the energy use in theNetherlands shows that the builtenvironment is a large contributor of thetotal energy use. Figure 1 visualizes therelation between energy use and climatechange. The built environment in theNetherlands causes about 35% percent ofthe total energy use in the Netherlands(Koene, 2007). Also, there is a bigpotential to decrease energy use inCO2 emissionClimatechangeEnergy useIndustry 30%Transport 30%FIGURE 1-ENERGY USE AND CLIMATE CHANGEBuilt environment 35%Other 5%buildings, and thereby contribute to a better environment. Therefore, the builtenvironment is an important focus area to contribute to the sustainability targets, statedby the European Union.ENERGY EXPENSES IN HOUSESThe large amount of energy use and material use is not the only concern in the builtenvironment. Increasing expenses for energy use in houses is another actual problemthat has to be solved in the near future.FIGURE 2 - DEVELOPMENT GAS PRICES (CORDEWENERSET AL, 2009)FIGURE 3 - DEVELOPMENT ELECTRICITY PRICES(CORDEWENERS ET AL, 2009)Increasing energy expenses is a significant and increasing social problem. During the lastdecades not only the use of energy increased, but also the price of energy increased. See8