White Papers

As part of an ongoing commitment to sustainability, responsible use of natural resources and the reduction of its carbon footprint, the Performance Films division of Solutia Inc. is pleased to announce completion of a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) by Harmony Environmental, LLC, and review by an independent third party. The results from the recently completed study conclude that Solutia's Performance Films division delivers a positive impact to the environment and its solar-control architectural window film products become carbon neutral less than two months after installation.

Within a relatively short period of time, the focus on being 'green' has transitioned from a niche aspect of the facility design and management industry to a standard consideration. This independent study of industry professionals illustrates emerging trends about the implementation of energy-savings projects.

Energy saving films are increasingly being used worldwide to lower building energy costs by reducing excessive solar heat gain through windows. This paper highlights the comparative cost savings per dollar invested for retrofit of existing windows with energy saving window film compared to window replacement with new solar-control low-e windows.

Determining energy savings from window film installations is difficult due to the common practice of implementing several energy conservation measures simultaneously. To isolate and quantify the energy-saving benefits of solar window films, an energy analysis study on a conventional office building was undertaken using the U.S. Department of Energy's sophisticated DOE-2 energy-simulation software. The study included several types of solar films applied to various glazing systems and various cities were included in the study to show the effect of differing electricity costs.

Solutia Performance Films recently launched a new architectural window film with the brand-name EnerLogic. Unlike most window films, that produce savings only during the cooling season, EnerLogic window film is an all-season, low-emissivity (low-e) film that produces savings during warmer and cooler seasons.