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InnoWEE is a four-year project (from 2016 to 2020) financed by the European Community that involves ten partners from different European countries, as Greece, Italy, Belgium, Romania, Slovenia, Spain and Poland. The aim is to use the waste materials coming from construction and demolition processes of buildings and include them into a geopolymeric matrix with the purpose of producing prefabricated panels for different applications. Construction and demolition waste (CDW) materials with suitable characteristics have been selected to develop high performance geopolymeric panels for building walls envelopes and radiant panels for indoor walls and ceilings with low environmental impact. Field tests will be carried out in different sites in Europe characterized by different climatic conditions to check the simplicity of the installation procedure and the performance of the panels in terms of energy efficiency and environmental impact.

The construction and demolition sector is one of the biggest consumers of natural resources in the world and consequently, one of the biggest waste producers worldwide. The proper management of construction and demolition waste (CDW) can provide major benefits for the construction and recycling industry. However, the recycling rate of CDW is relatively low, as there is still a lack of confidence in the quality of recycled CDW materials. Therefore, new research projects are looking for innovative solutions within recycling of CDW in order to overcome uncertainties currently associated with the use of construction products made from recycled or re-used CDW. In this paper, a “cradle-to-cradle” life cycle assessment (LCA) study has been conducted to investigate the environmental performance of the prefabricated geopolymeric façade cladding panels made from large fractions of CDW. The LCA results indicate that the majority of the environmental burden arises within the manufacturing stage; however, the environmental burden can be reduced with simple optimisation of the manufacturing process. Furthermore, the environmental impact of the prefabricated geopolymeric façade cladding panels is generally lower than the environmental burden associated with the façade cladding panels made from virgin materials.