Insulation protects the climate

Global warming is a subject that occupies the press and electronic media more and more. Rising global temperatures have a strongly negative effect on the climate and so on the environment. With constantly high emissions, the global temperature is expected to rise by as much as 3.5 °C by 2100! We are in the middle of the greatest climate change of the last 10,000 years and facing major problems for the health of ecosystems. Living conditions will worsen, and in the coming years and decades we cannot rule out major ecological disasters, wars and waves of refugees from certain parts of the world. It is high time to do something concrete and reduce the emissions that threaten life on Earth.

Insulation against harmful emissions — for the climate and the environment!

In December 1997 the third conference of the parties in Kyoto (Japan) adopted the "Kyoto Protocol", which obliges the signatory states to meet set targets for reducing a total of six greenhouse gases (e.g. CO2) over the four-year period 2008–2012.

At Austrotherm all products, both expanded (EPS) and extruded polystyrene (XPS), are made in a markedly environmentally friendly way. For EPS this has been true since the beginning of our group in Europe (EPS itself is a very "healthy" material, 98% of which is air!); for XPS we introduced CO2 as the blowing agent as early as 1999 (instead of freons and other more harmful gases, which were banned in the EU at the beginning of the 21st century).

An important criterion in the environmental assessment of insulation materials is the primary energy content (PEI) — the non-renewable energy used in making the material. Here EPS proves to be a "master of saving": the PEI of one m³ of facade EPS is 435 kWh, while for cork (also an insulation material) it is as much as 720 kWh. Perhaps no surprise, since EPS is mostly air (98%) and only a little polystyrene (2%). With this excellent energy balance, our products are highly recommendable from an environmental point of view.