In June 2010, Alex Wilson published a ground-breaking article, “Avoiding the Global Warming Impact of Insulation,” in Environmental Building News. In the article, Wilson examined the implications of the fact that the HFC blowing agents used to make extruded polystyrene (XPS) and most types of closed-cell spray polyurethane foam have a much greater global warming impact than CO2. As it turns out, the negative global warming impacts of escaped blowing agents from some types of foam insulation can sometimes outweigh the positive climate impacts attributable to energy savings.

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