Environmental assessment of a new building envelope material derived from urban agriculture wastes: the case of the tomato plants stems

Urban Farm DB summary

This study assessed the environmental impact of a new infill wall material derived from urban agriculture (UA) waste — tomato plant stems from a building rooftop greenhouse tomato crop — using life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology per ISO 14044 and ISO 14067, based on data from laboratory-scale sample production. The results indicate that when biogenic carbon fixed in the UA waste is accounted for, the material achieves a negative carbon footprint of -0.2 kg CO2eq per kg, meaning it can fix rather than emit carbon emissions over its life cycle; for the scenario considered, approximately 0.42 kg CO2eq per square meter per year could be sequestered. However, the crop area required to produce enough waste to manufacture a unit of the material was found to be quite large, and the study identifies reducing material density and exploring urban crops with higher waste production rates as directions for future work.