Is Greening the Building Envelope a Sustainable Design Practice?

Nowadays, the number of products and also of architectural projects, qualified as “sustainable”, is ever more growing. Following this trend, architectural design may exploit the use of (eco) materials and components to promote a project as sustainable even without considering its impact on the environment; This can be defined as architectural greenwash. This paper considers the case of green envelopes with the aim to evaluate if these can be defined as sustainable design practice. Green envelopes provide environmental advantages together with the suggestion to a green aesthetics par excellence. In fact, the integration of vegetation in urban fabric plays an important role in improving ecological and environmental conditions of (and in) cities, although systems can have a high environmental burden. This paper aims to answer the question: Is greening the building envelope a sustainable design practice? To do so, the paper provides a literature review which includes the main research developed regarding environmental burden, benefits and LCA (life cycle assessment) calculations of green envelopes.