Does it environmentaly beneficial to move to energy-saving homes?

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to find the answer to the question from which distance from employment it is worth living in the energy saving house and from which distance the environmental impacts of transport prevail over the benefits of environmentally friendly housing, all seen from the environmental point of view. The subject of the study are three specific passive houses, a low energy house, a family house of older construction in the city and a flat in a panel house in a housing estate. With regard to the most commonly used means of transport, the study includes traffic scenarios for commuting to the city by bus, train, and passenger car with varying occupancy rates. Examined categories of environmental impacts are global warming, fossil fuel loss, metal loss, human toxicity, terrestrial acidification, terrestrial and freshwater ecotoxicity, eutrophication, stratospheric ozone depletion, photooxidation and dust formation. The breakpoint analysis determined the threshold distance, whereby the environmental impacts of housing in energy efficient houses including environmental impacts of traffic are equal to the environmental impacts of housing in the city. This threshold distance differs for different types of environmental impacts, for individual houses and for each transport scenario. It was found that the threshold distance for living in one of the passive houses and commuting by train or bus is 80 km. Threshold distance in the same house using a passenger car for every single member of the family was, on the other hand, only 10 km.