Hesse's Climate Protection Plan 2025 aims to actively promote timber construction
Published
After one and a half years of consultation, the black-green Hessian state government has adopted its Climate Protection Plan 2025. According to the plan, greenhouse gas emissions are to be reduced by 30 percent by 2020, by 40 percent by 2025 and by at least 90 percent by 2050 (compared to the base year 1990). By achieving these goals, Hessen wants to become climate neutral by the middle of the century and contribute to national and international climate protection efforts.
The measures include, among others, the "storage of carbon in durable wood and fibre products and substitution of energy-intensive materials with wood and fibre products". To implement this, the state of Hesse wants to explicitly support timber construction and promote innovative timber products through funding programmes. In addition, timber construction and the use of wood are to be further promoted by reviewing building regulations and the state's procurement guideline.
From January 2017, the state capital Munich will also pay up to 2,000 euros in purchase premiums for privately used eCargobikes.
On 1 April 2016, the Munich-based Electromobility funding guideline into force. It introduced purchase premiums for commercial e-vehicles from pedelecs to e-cars. Since then, there has been a subsidy of 25 percent of the purchase price up to a maximum of 1000 euros for commercially used eCargobikes. In the first five months 86 applications approved. In addition, there is a 1000 euro scrapping premium if a car with an internal combustion engine is demonstrably permanently withdrawn from circulation.
In addition to the well-known ecological footprint, which describes the use of biocapacity by the population (in Germany about 2.5 times the available area), an attempt is currently being made with funds from the Ministry of Education and Research to develop an ecological handprint for positive sustainability effects.
This should enable consumers to orient themselves towards sustainable consumption. The Wuppertal CSCP, a spin-off of the Wuppertal Climate Institute, was commissioned. Three universities are involved: Kassel, Witten Herdecke and Lüneburg. On 5.11.2015 the kick-off workshop took place in Berlin. In June 2016 there was a stakeholder workshop and on 22/23.9.2016 the 3rd workshop will take place in Lüneburg.
In addition to construction, the project is about food and consumer goods. Various players from the economy were invited to the specialist conference.
Making life in the neighbourhood more ecologically, socially, economically and culturally sustainable together with the residents; that is the aim of "Real-world laboratory 131: KIT finds the city" at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). In Karlsruhe's Oststadt district, researchers in this laboratory are looking for ways to reduce CO2 emissions, conserve resources, strengthen neighbourhoods and improve the health of people in the district. The project has now been honoured twice by the German Council for Sustainable Development (RNE).
"The special thing about this project is that we work directly with the people living and working on the ground at eye level and can therefore not only incorporate specific local knowledge and think ahead. Rather, this makes it possible to take action for sustainable development," says Alexandra Quint from the project team at the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS). Ways to make neighbourhoods more pedestrian-friendly are being researched, as are new methods for energy-efficient building refurbishment, and services for sustainable living and sustainable mobility behaviour are being developed. The researchers' work is highly interdisciplinary: "Architects, philosophers, landscape planners, cultural scientists, environmental scientists and geoecologists work together in this team," says the urban geographer.
This is not just research, but also very practical work: "For example, there is a newly developed energy concept for increasing the proportion of renewable energies in existing buildings or initiatives for slowing down our increasingly hectic everyday lives," reports Dr Oliver Parodi, Head of Reallabor 131. In the "Beds and Bees" project, citizens and scientists have jointly designed a snack bed with herbs, fruit and vegetables in public spaces and set up a hive as a home for bees. Quint explains that this not only serves to raise environmental and nutritional awareness, but above all to build community. All of this is done in co-operation with civil society groups, the city administration, associations, businesses and, above all, the local citizens who regularly take part.
A series of events also provides approaches and ideas for alternative consumer behaviour. Parodi mentions plant swaps, clothes swap parties and a regular repair café. "Reallabor 131 is designed as a platform for participation and has a strong networking character." The project's own "Future Space for Sustainability and Science", a former shop, combines the characteristics of a neighbourhood office, a science shop and a community centre and is now a popular meeting point, event and educational venue.
According to Quint, the concept is attracting worldwide interest: "The laboratory is a model, is designed to be transferable and has so far been researched by scientists from the Netherlands, Spain and Australia, with requests for cooperation coming from Mexico, Russia, Switzerland, the USA, Estonia, Portugal and Spain."
Honoured as a transformation project
The German Council for Sustainable Development (RNE), which advises the German government on sustainability issues, has now honoured the Reallabor twice: with the "Project Sustainability 2017" seal of quality and as one of four "transformation projects" nationwide. With this seal, the RNE recognises initiatives from society that make a special contribution to sustainable development in Germany and the world. Around 240 projects applied for the award. According to the jury, the transformation projects honoured have particularly great potential to make the world more sustainable. The awards were presented at the end of May at the RNE's annual conference in Berlin.
The website provides information on all the activities of the real-world laboratory: www.quartierzukunft.de
In stark contrast to the political reality, the designs for the WerkBundStadt Berlin are characterized by the longing retro chic of a 19th century bourgeois residential culture.
We use cookies to optimize our website and services.
Functional
Always active
Technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a particular service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that have not been requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access, which is solely for statistical purposes.Technical storage or access used solely for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary consent from your Internet service provider, or additional records from third parties, information stored or accessed for this purpose cannot generally be used alone to identify you.
Marketing
Technical storage or access is necessary to create user profiles, to send advertising or to track the user on a website or across multiple websites for similar marketing purposes.
