In looking at materials, you need to understand the notion of embodied energy. Embodied energy is all the energy and effort that went into the making of a material, including all the effort from:
- Extraction: The material is harvested from nature.
- Processing: After it’s harvested, the material is processed into a usable form for manufacturing.
- Manufacturing: The processed material is fabricated into the final product.
- Transportation: The finished product is shipped (often long distances) to a warehouse or store.
- Installation: After it arrives on the construction site, the final product must be cut, fit, and installed.
People usually overlook embodied energy when they think about green products, but it’s a large portion of the overall impact of a material on the environment.
For example, the chair you’re sitting on while reading this has energy in it. Sure, it isn’t plugged into the wall, but there is energy within the chair. Energy is embodied within it. Most likely someone had to farm cotton, chop down wood, forge nails, and shear sheep just to get the raw materials together. Some of these materials may have even traveled a long distance to get to the factory. All these steps involved in making the chair required energy.
After the materials were gathered up, someone had to process them into fabric and cut the wood into a structure. All these steps also required energy.
Finally, someone had to ship these products to the store. The store is probably located far away from the factory, so the chair had to travel by plane, truck, or train to get there. All these steps also required energy.
All these efforts to make your chair add up to an immense amount of energy and effort. By examining this embodied energy, the goal is to find ways to reduce it. (You can find more information on embodied energy, as well as ways to choose products for your home that have less embodied energy, in Green Home Building Materials)
For example, if your chair were made out of salvaged scrap wood, no new trees would have to be destroyed to extract the wood. If when the wood was being cut, the leftover scraps were saved for later reuse, it would save future materials. If all this was done by a local craftsman, your new chair would not have to be shipped long distances, saving gasoline and greenhouse gas from the exhaust. This is how embodied energy can be reduced to lessen the environmental impact of a product.
Being Clear about By-Products
When a material is manufactured and produced, by-products are created. By-products are all the leftover materials created from the material’s life cycle, including:
- Extraction: Typically destroys natural resources. For example, harvesting wood often results in the total destruction of a forest.
- Manufacturing: Often creates pollution. For example, manufacturing steel gives off tons of greenhouse gas.
- Processing: Often demands large amounts of energy, which is usually provided from unsustainable fossil fuels. ....read more
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