The building industry is responsible for 36% of global final energy use (Global Alliance for Building and Construction, 2018), 39% of CO2 Emissions (Global Alliance for Building and Construction, 2017) and 50% of global waste in just cities (Ellen Macarthur Foundation, 2017). This is mainly due to the linear economy model which is still the dominant model nowadays. This model has been proven to be unsustainable, and it has put an enormous stress in the environment. For this reason, different approaches need to be integrated into the building industry. Designing with the aid of an environmental impact assessment framework is one approach to consider the degradation to the environment, product of a building design. By quantifying the amount of embodied energy and carbon footprint related to a desired acoustic and thermal insulation in a building, designers and engineers can take eco-informed decisions, which not only bring ecological benefits, but also material savings.

The focus of this thesis is on the facade level, which belongs to the ‘‘skin’’ of the building according to Brand (1994). According to Brand’s model this layer has an average lifespan of 20 years, meaning that a different approach on the facade level is required in order to reduce the environmental impact during its technical life-span, which is the end goal of the thesis. In order to reach the aforementioned objective, this thesis explores the relevant literature around facades, materials and the environment. Additionally, the relationship between the environment and the built environment is explored, as well as the building industry in the Netherlands with the aim of identifying the most used facade systems. Further study is conveyed for the development of a comparison and selection tool to identify the potentials and weaknesses of the different systems in order to design an environmentally friendly facade.