Abstract

MARTINEZ GAYTAN, Inti. Hacia la determinación de la viabilidad ambiental de los sistemas constructivos: el caso de los BTC en la zona central de la República mexicana. Apuntes [online]. 2012, vol.25, n.2, pp.248-257. ISSN 1657-9763.

This paper presents the progress of an investigation that pretends to identify and characterize a valid method for assessing the environmental viability of building materials, focusing on the case study of compressed earth blocks used in central Mexico. Raw earth materials have been granted the status of green, clean, or sustainable. But it has not been fully explained why. Generally, the argument revolves around their low or zero energy consumption, but the environmental spectrum is much broader and complex. From the logic of life cycle analysis (LCA) it is possible to identify events at each stage of a material, from raw material extraction to the end of its useful life. Based on this logic, and generally knowing the production processes of three masonry materials, it becomes a deductive exercise, from which possible values are provided with positive and negative impacts, for eight interest variables, along each stage of its life cycle.

Keywords : compressed earth blocks; environmental viability; life cycle analysis.

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