At present, the building sector holds more than 40% of energy consumption and 36% production of greenhouse gas emissions. The whole sector of buildings uses more than 50% of the Earth's raw materials and produces approximately 50% of world waste. The current legislative standards require as much as possible energy efficient construction. The inadequate thermal performance of the buildings and are currently the biggest challenges for the sector of buildings in the European Union in the context of addressing the sustainability of the built environment. The sustainable envelope of the building requires, among other things, high-quality thermal properties. Buildings require non-constant material and energy flows throughout their lifetime. And the buildings are also a major producer of emissions. This paper quantifies and compares the environmental impact of the basic types of thermal insulation materials. Environmental aspects such as embodied energy, global potential warming (GWP), acidification potential (AP), ozone depletion potential (ODP) and photochemical ozone creation potential (POCP) of thermal insulation are investigated.