Sustainability

Approach

Sustainability is a popular and important issue facing designers, builders, and building owners. However, recent developments have shown that programs such as LEED assessments and Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) do not always reveal the correct or best decisions about material selection or building strategies. "Life Cycle Assessments" or LCAs are an appropriate and rigorous approach to understanding where a material's total cradle-to-grave environmental impact is compared to an alternative, but there is a lot of nuance to these studies and their interpretation.

LCAs are complicated and project-specific. For example, a product's weight often plays a significant role in impacts like transportation, installation, and backup structure. All these factors vary from project to project, and measuring all these factors is usually beyond the scope of most conventional construction projects.

Studies

Since 2009, Kreysler & Associates has worked with Stanford University's School of Environmental Engineering to compare FRP systems to other materials in given situations. We compared an aquarium tank made of FRP to one made of shotcrete. Next, we looked at GFRC vs. FRP for a large rain screen project in Eastern Europe and limestone vs. FRP/polymer concrete building ornament replicas for a rehabilitation project in San Francisco. Next, we measured the impact of FRP reflective acoustic panels on a new concert hall at Stanford vs. an alternative concrete system at the EMPAC Performing Arts and Media Center in Troy, NY. Finally, we compare a large FRP sunshade to a float glass alternative and another GFRC rainscreen to a new, highly fire-resistant FRP system for the SFMOMA facade.