Life cycle assessment of energy and environmental implications of the implementation of conservation technologies in school buildings in Mendoza-Argentina

The energy and environmental implications of applying different conservative technologies in school buildings in and Andean regions of Mendoza-Argentina have been assessed in this work using life cycle assessment. The case studied is a school building which has recently been built in Lavalle, a county in northern Mendoza's province. The obtained results show that almost all the environmental effects investigated are improved when the conservative technologies are implemented, except for the photochemical ozone formation potential. The use of wood in an uncontrolled combustion as the energetic source for brick baking has been identified as the responsible process of that unintended negative effect. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.