Reflective building materials pose risk to birds

Heating and cooling buildings has been identified as a major contributor to emissions from the building sector. To increase insulation and save energy, reflective materials are being applied to building surfaces. These new insulation techniques could pose a risk to birds, as reflective surfaces on buildings have been linked to many bird collision deaths.

Nº 40


  • Climate & Atmosphere
  • Buildings Emission Reduction
  • Improving Energy Efficiency
some attempts made
past case
Region-1
Region-2
Region-3
Region-4
ongoing case
no attempts made

None

Reflective building materials pose risk to birds

Heating and cooling buildings has been identified as a major contributor to emissions from the building sector. To increase insulation and save energy, reflective materials are being applied to building surfaces. These new insulation techniques could pose a risk to birds, as reflective surfaces on buildings have been linked to many bird collision deaths.

A study has shown that bird collisions with buildings are a common and widespread phenomenon in Argentina and that the reflection of windows has a major influence on the number of collisions. This suggests that other reflective materials on buildings, such as reflective insulation material, could also lead to more bird collisions.

  • Frustrated the efforts to address the initial problem
  • Singular (only one effect)

Rebolo-Ifrán, N., Di Virgilio, A., & Lambertucci, S. A. (2019). Drivers of bird-window collisions in southern South America: a two-scale assessment applying citizen science. Scientific reports, 9(1), 18148. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-54351-3

Ashhar, M. Z. M., & Haw, L. C. (2022). Recent research and development on the use of reflective technology in buildings–A review. Journal of Building Engineering, 45, 103552. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jobe.2021.103552

De Groot, K. L., Wilson, A. G., McKibbin, R., Hudson, S. A., Dohms, K. M., Norris, A. R., … & Wilson, S. (2022). Bird protection treatments reduce bird-window collision risk at low-rise buildings within a Pacific coastal protected area. PeerJ, 10, e13142. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.13142

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