In December 2020, the German Timber Industry Association (HDH) launched the "Initiative for Climate Protection in the Timber Industry". The aim is to support the industry companies in the necessary reduction of CO2 emissions. The initiative is now being further developed into an innovation cluster.
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"nWert", GLS Gemeinschaftsbank eG's sustainability rating tool for real estate, has been recognised by the German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB) as a sustainability rating. At the same time, GLS Bank recognises the DGNB certificate as proof when granting financing. This was announced by Dr. Christine Lemaitre of the DGNB and Dr. Matthias Morgenstern, GLS ImmoWert, on the occasion of Expo Real 2021 in Munich.
The property developer WvM Immobilien + Projektentwicklung GmbH and the eco-energy supplier NATURSTROM AG found the joint company Green Estate. With the fusion of energy and real estate know-how, the partners are taking a new path to enable people to live sustainably.
at the Sustainable Procurement Symposium in Dortmund on 26 August 2021 The Sustainable Procurement Day is a platform for exchange for procurers and decision-makers from municipalities, private and public institutions as well as churches and companies. Federal Environment Minister Svenja Schulze is the patron. The Agency for Renewable Resources e. V. (FNR), project management agency of the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture, will be represented with a workshop on the topic of "Public building and renovation with wood - the right way to tender for timber construction projects" in addition to the stand "The renewable office".
With a very large majority, the municipal council decided on 22.07.2021 to initiate the urban development measure (SEM) "Nördlich Hafner". The development statute provides the project with a binding legal framework for the city of Constance and the remaining property owners in the area. The decision is also the conclusion of the preparatory studies (VU) that have been running for about four years, in which not only various subject-related studies and the urban development framework plan were developed, but also a comprehensive timetable and a detailed cost and financing overview were drawn up. The development of the approx. 106 ha area (of which approx. 60 ha are residential areas) including all technical and social infrastructures (e.g. day-care centres, primary school) will cost a total of almost 420 million euros. Income from the allocation of land will ultimately result in a largely balanced overall balance.
As never before, content and packaging matched at the anniversary appearance of the French Timber Construction Forum. As an advertisement for timber construction, the temporary Grand Palais Ephémère speaks for itself. The Ephémère Auditorium, created especially for the Forum and made of curved CLT panels, and the "Belleville" exhibition stands made of hardwood, also developed for this edition, are a perfect match. This convincing embedding of the message about the shift towards building with renewable raw materials attracted not only 6800 registered visitors, but also two ministers and President Macron. The intention announced shortly afterwards to increase the aid for the forestry and timber sector approved a year ago by 100 million euros is unmistakably linked to this appearance.
Author of the book review: Roman Schaurhofer, Vienna
The construction volume "Commercial Buildings in Clay and Wood - Added Value through Material" was published in 2020 by Sabine Djahanschah of the Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt (German Federal Foundation for the Environment) at Verlag Detail. The publication, which appeared in book form, deals with the use of the building materials wood and clay in the construction of commercially used buildings. To this end, six buildings with commercial use were analysed in terms of their architectural construction and technical quality features and evaluated with the help of measurements, surveys and life cycle assessments.
How can Wuppertal become a climate-neutral city by 2035? This question is discussed by the Wuppertal Institute in this new study, which was presented by Lord Mayor Uwe Schneidewind on 1.7.2021.
Explained in just under 10 min. The video is from April 2019 and shows two larger aquaponics facilities in Berlin.
Sascha Müller-Kraenner, Federal Director of Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH), comments on today's debate on the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) in the Bundestag: "The Grand Coalition is breaking its promise to set higher expansion targets for renewable energies for the year 2030 before the end of this legislative period. An agreement failed primarily due to the energy transition obstructionists within the CDU/CSU parliamentary group. The German government is thus ignoring the implementation of the new EU climate targets and disregarding the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court to tackle more ambitious climate protection measures before 2030. The amendment to the Renewable Energy Sources Act is missing the centrepiece. At the end of 2020, Federal Minister for Economic Affairs Peter Altmaier announced an ambitious expansion path for wind and solar energy for the first quarter of 2021. After a long wait, there was only the famous drop in the ocean: four gigawatts of onshore wind energy and six gigawatts of photovoltaics are the targets for 2022. Longer-term expansion targets? Not a chance. Clearly, the need for a rapid transformation of our energy supply has not yet been recognised by the CDU/CSU, despite all their climate protection commitments during the election campaign."
The new National Progress Report on the Implementation of the New Urban Agenda shows the state of sustainability in urban development in German municipalities. The report was prepared by the German Institute of Urban Affairs on behalf of the Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development (BBSR).
The passive house turns 30 - pioneering work paves the way for energy efficiency worldwide The passive house celebrates its 30th birthday! The pioneering project started as an experiment by building physicist Prof Wolfgang Feist can take great credit for its success: When climate protection was only on the agenda for very few people, it paved the way for energy efficiency in buildings. Today, the passive house standard is being realised around the world, including in impressive flagship projects. Further reasons to celebrate: the 25th anniversary of the Passive House Institute and the anniversary edition of the International Passive House Conference.
To live up to its climate change pledge under the Paris Agreement, the European Union must ensure that all 250 million existing buildings, as well as all new buildings in the EU, produce near-zero greenhouse gas emissions. In a new report, European national academies of science, through their association EASAC, call for far-reaching policy action. "Policies have long focused on creating energy-efficient buildings that require less heating and air conditioning or generate renewable energy on site. However, the energy used to operate buildings is only part of the story. We need to broaden the scope and look at emissions from building materials and methods - both for new buildings and for building refurbishment," says William Gillett, Director of EASAC's Energy Programme.
G7 environment ministers issue far-reaching declaration: 1.5 degree limit takes centre stage - progress also to be made on international climate financing before the World Climate Summit
For the mayors of German cities, climate protection and mobility remain the most important topics despite the pandemic. The OB-Barometer 2021 of the German Institute of Urban Affairs (Difu) shows a clear trend change in the topic of inner city development, which is gaining strongly in importance.
In a recently written short study, scientists from the Department of Energy System Analysis at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE prepared an evaluation of the Market Master Data Register (MaStR) and the EEG system master data for photovoltaics (PV). Important findings of the analyses were that with 38 percent of the newly installed capacity, the increase in capacity in Germany is increasingly taking place in the segment of rooftop systems larger than 100 kW, 22 percent of the newly built PV systems are erected in a west, east or east-west direction and 19 percent of these systems have tilt angles smaller than 20 degrees.
Building culture is becoming a recognised goal in the real estate industry: with support from the real estate and housing industry, the Institute for Corporate Governance in the German Real Estate Industry (ICG) and the Federal Foundation for Building Culture initiated and developed the Code for building culturea voluntary commitment for the responsible performance of tasks by companies in the real estate industry.
- Other countries are leading the way: Spain adopts 30 km/h speed limit in cities; French cities with 30 km/h speed limit have 70 percent fewer fatal accidents
- Federal government fails "Vision Zero" and ignores 30 km/h as an immediate measure in key points paper for new road safety programme
- Current United Nations Road Safety Week identifies reduction of speed limit to 30 km/h in built-up areas as key measure to protect lives
This building group project with 43 residential units, some of them as maisonettes, was realized as a timber hybrid building and exemplifies the qualities of timber construction in a dense urban context.
Exploit potential at neighbourhood level!
The KfW programme "Energy-efficient urban refurbishment" promotes integrated energy-efficient neighbourhood concepts and refurbishment management with programme part 432. Programme parts 201 and 202 provide investment support for cross-building and infrastructural supply systems. The Federal Ministry of the Interior, for Building and the Home Affairs provides the funding for the energy refurbishment process from the individual building to the neighbourhood from the Energy and Climate Fund (EKF).The Special price on the topic "Urban development revisited: Prices - Practice - Perspectives" was given to the project Urban development area Stuttgarter Straße, French Quarter in Tübingen. The special prize, which is awarded in parallel to the urban development prize, serves to highlight particularly urgent fields of action in urban development and urban planning. It was awarded on 23.4.2021 on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the German Urban Development Prize to contributions that had already been recognised with prizes and awards between 1980 and 2010. The judging of the special prize was very complex, as it had to cover a span of 30 years, i.e. a generation, of the achievements of German urban development that were considered outstanding at the time, and, in retrospect, it had to be based on robust, objective criteria that could adequately reflect the complexity of 30 years of urban development history and 30 years of urban development models.
The prize is awarded every two years by the German Academy for Urban Development and Regional Planning (DASL) with significant support from the Wüstenrot Foundation. Urban Development Award in the DSP 2020 competition goes to the project Quarter at the former Blumengroßmark in Berlin. With 81 applications, a particularly large number of projects were submitted for the Urban Design Award. The spectrum was very broad: urban-structural-geographical, thematic, structural-spatial. From the new town hall in the urban planning context of a small municipality to the large conversion project of a metropolitan region, the interdisciplinary jury (urban planning, architecture, open space planning, preservation of historical monuments, economics, sociology) was faced with a very difficult decision in many cases.
The Federal Award ENVIRONMENT & BUILDING initiated by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) and the Federal Environment Agency (UBA) under the patronage of Federal Minister Svenja Schulze honors projects that already realize the idea of a new Bauhaus in the sense of holistically sustainable buildings. In 2021, the prize will be awarded for the second time, this time in four categories. All players in the building sector are eligible to apply. The closing date for entries is 25 May 2021.. The prize will be awarded on 7 September by Parliamentary State Secretary Florian Pronold and UBA President Dirk Messner.
In a research project of the iaw, the conceptual foundations of urban production and the productive city were prepared with a view to the situation in Bremen and analysed in their impact structure. The study makes proposals for describing and recording urban production that is compatible with the city and embedding it in an urban development policy model of a productive city. On the basis of seven reference cities (Vienna, Zurich, Stuttgart, Hamburg, Frankfurt am Main, Wuppertal, Bochum), corresponding activities were filtered out and their transferability to the city of Bremen was examined. In the city of Bremen, eight locations and neighbourhoods (including the Tabakquartier and Kellogg-Areal) were examined with regard to their potential for implementing a productive city.
European Green Deal offers opportunities for investments in emission-intensive basic industries - Clear political framework must ensure that investments are also cost-effective and incentivised - Introduction of CO2 contracts for difference and reform of EU emissions trading essential.
"Municipalities are crucial drivers for the sustainable development of our society," explains Dr. Werner Schnappauf, Chairman of the German Council for Sustainable Development (RNE). "All 17 sustainability goals are directly or indirectly related to the tasks of a municipality. The new reporting framework sustainable municipality, the BNK, can be a great help for further progress in the field of sustainability", says Schnappauf.
Sustainable development in Germany is inconceivable without a resource-efficient construction industry. The new expert recommendation VDI-EE 4802 Sheet 1 explains in a practical way how to apply the concept of resource efficiency in the life cycle of buildings. To this end, it breaks down the tasks and scope for action of the individual players in the construction process. Using examples of increased material, energy and space efficiency, the expert recommendation supports the entire planning process towards a resource-efficient building.
Storms, drought and insect infestations have caused a great deal of damage to Germany's forests over the past three years. The "International Day of Forests" on 21 March is a good time to become aware of the many services provided by the forest.
A most welcome piece of news reached the city of Aachen this morning (17 March 2021): Federal Minister Horst Seehofer has announced this year's selection of the "National Projects of Urban Development" and announced that the development of the Büchel old town quarter will receive up to 5.5 million euros in funding. Aachen is thus one of four municipalities in NRW to have been awarded the contract. With the amount of funding, the city is in third place nationwide.
The industry figures published annually by BVES show a fundamentally positive development in retrospect for 2020 and in the forecast for 2021. Across all technologies and segments, sales in the energy storage industry grew by over 10 percent to EUR 7.1 billion in 2020.
"The raw material wood is precious. It is therefore important to use it responsibly and in a way that conserves resources," warns Peter Aicher, Chairman of Holzbau Deutschland. Even if wood is affected by environmental influences or the bark beetle, it does not represent an inferior raw material, but has almost identical properties to conventional construction timber. "If the so-called 'calamity wood' has the same structural quality in terms of load-bearing capacity as conventional sawn timber, it can be used without restrictions," explains Aicher. In addition, the wood retains its important function as a CO2 sink, regardless of external impairments.
Animation from Jan Kamensky (2020)
Heidelberg is receiving massive funding from the 2021 urban development programme for two construction projects on conversion sites. The development of Patrick-Henry-Village (PHV) into a new city district has even received the highest funding amount in the entire programme. Heidelberg will receive 3.5 million euros for this project. In addition, the conversion of the sports hall on the former US hospital in Rohrbach will be funded with 400,000 euros. This was announced by the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Economics on Wednesday, February 3.
