ABSTRACT
Energy efficiency (EE) is a key challenge for our world of tomorrow, leading to a twofold bet, both energetic and environmental, relating to climatic changes and carbon emissions, decrease and cost of oil resource, and an outburst of expenses related to energy. This fundamental EE goal spreads over all industrial sectors, including transport, aviation, manufacturing, etc. The Building Construction1 sector, in this context, is at the forefront of challenges and expectations: for instance, in Europe, between 40% and 50% of the energy we generate goes into heating and powering buildings, accounting for around 30% of the carbon emissions, and it is recognised that ∼50% of savings to meet Kyoto objectives can be obtained by EE in Buildings & Construction. According to Eurostat, private household energy use contributes approx. 41% to Europe’s energy needs while traffic contributes 31% and industry 28%. An individual family uses approx. 70% of its energy consumption around the house. A significant reduction of European energy
consumption would be possible with the development and application of new products to be used in new and existing homes as well as in public buildings such as schools, hospitals, administrative centres, etc.
