The world suffers from serious environmental problems related to pollution and greenhouse gases, especially from the construction sector, known for its high level of energy consumption and carbon emission. To evaluate this, the authors aimed to demonstrate the benefits of ecological binders on the thermal characteristics of walls, encouraging constructors to adopt these binders in the building sector, which would significantly reduce energy consumption, pollution, and carbon emissions from construction activities.

This work has been divided into several sections. The first section consisted of a description of the walls studied and the materials used; the second one included a description of the thermal characteristics of modern and vernacular walls using the ecological binders plaster-cork and Tadelakt, in which thermal properties have been determined using the hot plate method. In addition, a study concerning the heat exchange of those walls using the ecological binders has been conducted to evaluate the effect of Tadelakt and plaster-cork on the thermal characteristics of walls. The final step involves a comparison between carbon emissions of the walls studied with and without those ecological binders. Results show some important findings about the thermal characteristics and the heat exchange of walls with the exterior air using the ecological binders. Moreover, the authors observe a significant carbon emission from walls using those ecological binders.