The life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology is becoming increasingly prevalent in the quantification of the environmental status in the building sector following new legislative frameworks. Countries need to quantify and assess their environmental impacts as a previous step to regulation and decision-making. In this context, based on a consensus with manufacturers, standardized national data sets are being developed, referred to as sectoral environmental product declarations (EPDs). This study assesses these EPDs with the aim of providing relevant information for global decision-making, focusing on their consistency and shortcomings. An assessment was carried out at both the national level, considering all sectoral EPDs and declared products, and at the international level, with three common building materials (brick, steel, and concrete). The results highlight the lack of traceability in the development and assessment of uncertainty, resulting in substantial discrepancies in reported impacts, especially in the later stages of the life cycle (up to 90% difference). Meanwhile, impacts such as global warming potential or total renewable and non-renewable primary energy use show homogeneous values in the cradle-to-gate stages, with differences generally being under 10%. The analysis of sectoral EPDs should act as a guideline for designing buildings with environmental sustainability criteria, as the last section of this study attempts to highlight.

Radiant floor heating is becoming increasingly popular in cold climates because it delivers higher comfort levels more efficiently than conventional systems. Wood is one of the surface coverings most frequently used in radiant flooring, despite the widely held belief that in terms of thermal performance it is no match for higher conductivity materials if a high energy performance is intended. Given that the highest admissible thermal resistance for flooring finishes or coverings is generally accepted to be 0.15 m²K/W, wood would appear to be a scantly appropriate choice. Nonetheless, the evaluation of the thermal performance of wooden radiant floor heating systems in conjunction with the building in terms of energy demand, thermal comfort, and start-up period, has been insufficiently explored in research. This has led to the present knowledge gap around its potential to deliver lower energy consumption and higher thermal comfort than high-thermal-conductivity materials, depending on building characteristics. This article studies the thermal performance of wood radiant floors in terms of three parameters: energy demand, thermal comfort, and start-up lag time, analysing the effect of wood properties in conjunction with building construction on each. An experimentally validated radiant floor model was coupled to a simplified building thermal model to simulate the performance of 60 wood coverings and one reference granite covering in 216 urban dwellings differing in construction features. The average energy demand was observed to be lower in the wood than in the granite coverings in 25% of the dwellings simulated. Similarly, on average, wood lagged behind granite in thermal comfort by less than 1 h/day in 50% of the dwellings. The energy demand was minimised in a significant 18% and thermal comfort maximised in 14% of the simulations at the lowest thermal conductivity value. The vast majority of the wooden floors lengthened the start-up lag time relative to granite in only 30 min or less in all the dwellings. Wood flooring with the highest thermal resistance (even over the 0.15 m²K/W cited in standard EN 1264-2) did not significantly affect the energy demand or thermal comfort. On average, wood flooring lowered energy demand by 6.4% and daily hours of thermal comfort by a mere 1.6% relative to granite coverings. The findings showed that wood-finished flooring may deliver comparable or, in some cases, higher thermal performance than high-conductivity material coverings, even when their thermal resistance is over 0.15 m²K/W. The suggestion is that the aforementioned value, presently deemed the maximum admissible thermal resistance, may need to be revised.

Due to its relatively lower thermal conductivity, the suitability of wood is called into question when selecting the flooring material best suited to radiant heating systems. The European standard EN 1264 considers floorings with a thermal resistance over 0.15 m² K/W to be out of scope. This belief was partially disproved in a previous article that studied wooden floors for Madrid’s climate. However, the effect of climate still needs to be addressed. The present study extends the previous research to worldwide climates and aimed to answer the following questions: (1) Do the lowest thermal conductivity woods present good thermal performance when used in radiant floors? (2) Should the flooring have a maximum thermal resistance value? (3) Is the standard thermal resistance limit of 0.15 m² K/W objectively justified? And (4) Do the answers of the preceding questions depend on the climate and the construction characteristics? To answer these questions, 28 cities were selected according to the Köppen–Geiger climate classification. In each city, 216 different dwellings were simulated with 60 wood floorings and one of low thermal resistance as a reference, comprising a total of 368,928 cases. Thermal performance was evaluated in terms of three parameters: energy demand, thermal comfort, and start-up lag time. Consequently, the answers to the previous questions were: (1) The lowest thermal conductivity woods can be used efficiently worldwide in radiant floor heating systems with start-up lag times close to that of the reference flooring; (2) There is no limit value for thermal resistance for floorings that can be applied to all dwellings and climates; (3) No objective justification was found for establishing a thermal resistance limit for flooring of 0.15 m² K/W; and (4) Climate and construction characteristics can play an important role in the correct selection of flooring properties, especially in severe winters and dwellings with the greatest outdoor-exposed envelope and the worst insulation.

Wood decay have the greatest impact on in-service wood structural elements. In most cases, decay is associated with excessive accumulation of moisture in the wood. The structural design conditions have an effect on the wood moisture content and this affects the service life of the material. In this study, which involved an experimental trial specifically designed to embrace different structural design conditions, the moisture content evolution in different places affected by different design conditions was evaluated over a period of three years in Madrid (Spain). The effect of protection by eaves, separation from the ground and the vertical or horizontal arrangement of the wood elements on the monthly evolution of the moisture content and decay risk are assessed.

The construction sector is achieving its goal of decarbonization. Bioproducts are known to reduce the environmental footprint of the building process, but it is necessary that we determine their exact environmental value. However, assessing the environmental impact relating to buildings is challenging due to a lack of data. The objective of this study was to generate background datasets contextualized to Pinus sylvestrys, L. glulam manufacturing in Spain and apply those datasets to a cradle-to-gate life cycle assessment (LCA) to evaluate both embodied energy (EE) and carbon (EC), as well as biogenic carbon and emissions to air. The corresponding raw materials and energy flows required to apply the LCA methodology were gathered and processed from information from the Spanish forest and wood industry. The resulting background datasets include 27 vehicles and machines, which allowed the quantification of four impact category indicators: renewable primary energy (resources), non-renewable primary energy (resources), use of renewable secondary fuels and global warming potential. Biogenic carbon was also calculated. Based on those five values, the embodied energy and carbon of Pinus sylvestris, L. glulam were quantified: EE = 1401 MJ/UD and EC = −724 kg_CO2-eq/UD. The generation of background datasets and environmental information is innovative and of great interest, and it is a powerful tool for prescribers and technicians.

Purpose: The ILCD+EPD format provides a solid foundation for EPD digitalisation and is evolving to enhance interoperability and automation. This study analyses the current version’s limitations in digitising Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), assessing its capacity to ensure traceability, interoperability, and machine readability of environmental data. It also identifies key areas for improvement and proposes enhancements to facilitate integration into digital environments such as BIM and the forthcoming Digital Product Passport (DPP) under the European framework. Methods: The research is based on a review of EPD digitisation, with a special focus on the ILCD+EPD original format developed by InData. Fifty EPDs representative of the Spanish market, belonging to three Programme Operators (POs), were selected and digitised using the EPD Editor and Soda4LCA tools. The information was structured in accordance with the CPEN 2020 version of the ILCD+EPD format (version 1.2) and standardised using a ‘data matrix’, ensuring that the fields corresponded to the standard schema. The results were visualised and validated on the OpenDAP platform and also compared with European experiences (ÖKOBAUDAT, IBU, EPD Norge) to assess the consistency, interoperability and replicability of the process. Results: The results identify critical aspects in the practical use of the ILCD+EPD format, such as clarifying ambiguous fields, incorporating unique identifiers to reduce errors, and enabling automatic interpretation of key information to support full automation of data exchange. The proposed matrix enhances the homogeneity and comparability of digitised EPDs, allowing partial automatic reading and more efficient information management. However, the continued reliance on original PDF formats and heterogeneity among operators still limit interoperability. The discussion also addresses regulatory developments (CPR, EPBD, ISO 22057) and their anticipated impact on the new version 1.3 of the ILCD+EPD format, which has undergone a review and is moving towards European harmonisation. Conclusions: This study analyses whether it would be interesting to harmonise the ILCD+EPD, ISO 22057 and DPP formats by adopting standardised templates and specific data dictionaries for each product category. In addition, it considers the potential development of automatic validation tools and parametric approaches to reduce manual intervention, increase comparability between databases and facilitate the direct incorporation of environmental information into BIM models and life cycle analysis platforms.