June 2022

Sustainability & Construction
‘PLASTIC DOESN'T HAVE TO BE THE
VILLAIN ON THE ROAD TO NET ZERO’
By Joan Ferrer, Commercial Director, UK & Ireland at Ravago Building Solutions.
Acentury ago, “the material of a thousand
uses” was a vision for the future of plastic.
Invented in 1907, the first fully synthetic
plastic was – with remarkable clairvoyance –
marketed as almost infinite in its applications,
promising to revolutionise our daily lives.
And so it did. In the past 20 years alone, annual
global production of all plastics has near enough
doubled, yet unfortunately more than half of the
nine billion tonnes manufactured since the 1950s
has ended up as waste – causing such havoc
that it has recently united 175 countries in an
agreement to develop a world-first treaty
towards ending plastic pollution.
To many people, plastic is now a
dirty word – but to those of us in
construction, it’s synonymous
with words like strength, versatility
and durability. While we must be
conscious of the environmental footprint of this
material, we couldn’t do without it; from safetycritical
PPE, to basic tools, to robust building
products, plastic has quite literally helped to build
the modern world, and used responsibly, it has a
role to play in building a greener world.
As demand for ecological construction rises as
the world treads the road to net-zero, plasticderived
products increasingly seem to elicit a
reflexive sheepishness amongst specifiers. This is
particularly noticeable when it comes to
insulation.
Perception seems to have a lot to do with it; one
recent study points toward our subconscious
drive to favour “natural” construction materials
over synthetic, whilst another highlights a
significant gap in European construction
professionals’ understanding of the
environmental burden associated with thermal
Left: Joan Ferrer, Commercial Director UK & Ireland at Ravago Building Solutions.
“While we must
be conscious of
the environmental
footprint of this
material (plastic), we
couldn’t do without it”
insulation materials, perhaps exacerbated by the
inconsistent quality of environmental product
declarations (EPD) for building products.
Of course, when faced with progressively more
rigorous standards for sustainable building,
perception is surpassed by the proven thermal
performance of plastic materials such as
extruded polystyrene (XPS) insulation.
One of the simplest methods of improving overall
building performance is to address heat loss,
especially via the specification of highperformance
XPS roof insulation. Double or triple
layering a lesser-performing alternative is an
option – but not a logical one, when you factor in
the increased financial and environmental costs
of product, transport, and labour. A single layer of
next-generation XPS insulation can hit U-value
targets as stringent as 0.10 W/m²k.
Its low thermal conductivity, high compressive
strength, and superior thermal resistance also
ensure a longer lifespan for the roof, reducing the
environmental payback period – one area in
which plastic’s longevity is a blessing. In one
study, XPS installed under freezing, high-traffic
Alaskan roads and airport runways far
outperformed expanded polystyrene (EPS), which
needs to be 1.5 to 2 times thicker than XPS to
deliver the same in-service R-value.
The same is true even in much warmer, more
volatile climates; when, after 17 years,
Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport was reroofed
in 2003, scientists found that the original
XPS insulation had survived everything from
tornadoes, to extreme heatwaves, to one of the
most destructive hailstorms in history, with
Continued on page 52
50 TC JUNE 2022