The number of car sharing users in Germany rose sharply again in 2016. On 1 January 2017, a good 1.7 million customers were registered with German car sharing providers. This is 36 per cent more than in the previous year. The German government now wants to promote the further expansion of the service through a car sharing law.
You can read all the information on this at:
www.carsharing.de/mehr-17-millionen-carsharing-nutzer-deutschland
In an article also published today, WiWo Green discusses whether Car2go, Drive Now & Co. actually benefit the environment.
Getting rid of your car and sharing one with others - that's the basic idea behind car sharing. The idea is to reduce the burden on the environment and traffic. But experts think so: In the meantime, the opposite is happening.
Timber construction can be cheaper than standard construction - At the same time significantly better CO2 balance
MNP Architects Munich, School Wangen
Current comparative calculations based on realized new buildings in timber construction show: Building with wood does not have to be more expensive than the standard construction method. This result is surprising, as it contradicts the common perception that timber construction is more expensive. At the same time, the CO2 balance of timber construction is significantly better; as a result, its CO2 avoidance costs are very favourable, in some cases even negative. An expansion of timber construction would therefore be climate protection at comparatively low cost.
The architect and developer of the Legep construction software, Holger König, has balanced the construction costs and CO2 emissions for the production of five public and private timber buildings and compared them with the results that would have been produced for the same buildings if they had been built in the conventional way. Legep can be used to calculate the manufacturing and life-cycle costs, energy requirements and environmental impact of buildings. In this case, König only looked at manufacturing. For the prices, he used current sirAdos data, which represent the market very realistically. He then went to the trouble that many architects, civil engineers and building owners shy away from: He modeled the buildings with the same area and cubature and the same energy standard, but replaced the wooden components with conventional materials - depending on the building project, solid masonry in brick, sand-lime brick or aerated concrete, or a column-beam supporting structure made of reinforced concrete. He used reinforced concrete for the floor slab, cellar, ceilings and flat roofs, mineral wool or polystyrene for the insulation, and plastic or aluminum frames for the windows. König explains the fact that four out of five buildings in timber construction cost less or the same as in standard construction with the industrial-technical development that many timber construction companies have undergone in recent years. Two of the timber buildings even achieved a negative CO2 balance in the manufacturing phase due to the large amount of renewable raw materials used, which act as carbon stores. In the other three buildings, a slightly higher proportion of non-wooden components, which every timber building also contains, caused the slightly positive CO2 balance.
If one relates the difference in CO2 savings to the difference in construction costs, one obtains the CO2 avoidance costs of timber construction. Negative abatement costs here mean that the builder has saved costs with timber construction compared to standard construction and at the same time protected the climate.
By increasing the proportion of timber construction, more climate protection can be achieved at low or even negative costs, while at the same time strengthening rural areas. The green-red state government in Baden-Württemberg has recognised this and created more favourable framework conditions for the building material in its state building code, which was amended on 1 March (information here). In contrast, some state building codes still contain legal obstacles to building with wood.
The city of Munich also wants to convince more builders to use timber construction: as part of its "Munich Energy Saving Promotion Programme", it has been granting a CO2 bonus for the use of timber and other renewable raw materials in building construction of 30 cents/kg since 2013 (information here).
A high insulation standard with insulating materials made from renewable raw materials is also a contribution to climate protection. The plant raw materials from which the insulating materials were obtained have bound CO2 from the atmosphere, which is now stored in the building material for long periods of time. And finally, heating based on renewable energies also reduces CO2 emissions.
The Agency of Renewable Resources (Fachagentur Nachwachsende Rohstoffe e.V.). (FNR) funded the determination of LCA baseline data for the Legep programme with funds from the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) between 2004 and 2006.
The Sustainable Development Report 2020 presents the SDG Index and Dashboards for all UN member states and frames the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in terms of six broad transformations. It was prepared by teams of independent experts at the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and the Bertelsmann Stiftung.
The jury selected nine prize winners this year, and in addition seven commendations were awarded. 134 projects were submitted, all of which, according to the jury, "demonstrate a level of craftsmanship that can hardly be surpassed". They were awarded on 30 June in CUBUS Wolfurt.
The "Vorarlberger Holzbaupreis 2017" was awarded to:
Category "Apartment buildingRow house LG, Lustenau
Rehabilitation" categoryOeconomy Building Josef Weiss, Dornbirn, Julia Kick DI ZT Architect, Dornbirn
Category "Single-family houseHouse Birne, Nüziders, DI Martin Mackowitz, Feldkirch and Helmut Taudes, Nüziders
Category "Single-family houseResidential house W, Bezau, cukrowicz nachbaur architekten ZT GmbH, Bregenz and Jürgen Haller, Mellau
Category "Other/holiday home": Haus am Stürcherwald, Laterns, architect Bernardo Bader ZT GmbH, Dornbirn
Out of the country" categoryHouse A, Eschlikon, Srich & Oswald Gmbh, Zurich
Out of the country" categoryResidential home for refugees, Hanover, MOSAIK Architekten BDA PartGmbH, Hanover
Ecology and Sustainability" CategoryResidential building F, Dornbirn, cukrowicz nachbaur architekten ZT GmbH, Bregenz and Jürgen Haller, Mellau
When the Vorarlberg Timber Construction Prize was awarded for the first time in 1997, it was a pioneer of its kind. Today it is considered the benchmark of the industry, is internationally known and helps to market the Vorarlberg region to tourists. Around 30,000 architectural tourists come every year because of the outstanding timber architecture, according to the press release of the organisers. vorarlberger holzbau_kunst - a regional network of planners, craftsmen and companies that is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year.
The member states of the United Nations want to agree on a new urban agenda as part of the Habitat III conference in Quito. This "New Urban Agenda" is intended to serve as a political guideline for urban development over the next two decades. Federal Building Minister Barbara Hendricks takes part in the official opening of the Habitat III conference together with Friedrich Kitschelt, State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Hendricks: "All over the world, people are moving to cities. Cities therefore hold the key to a sustainable and climate-friendly world. It is important to invest in the right infrastructure today. Cities need support for this. They must be put in a position to fulfil the demands of their inhabitants for decent housing, access to energy, clean water or sewage and waste disposal, but also for education and participation. This is what I will be campaigning for in Quito."
Half of the world's population already lives in cities today. By 2050, this figure is expected to rise to two thirds. Around 90 per cent of this growth is taking place in developing and emerging countries. At the same time, cities are responsible for around 70 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Habitat III is a UN process that addresses the development of cities around the world against the backdrop of urbanisation and places it in the context of the global sustainability goals of the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Climate Agreement. The "New Urban Agenda", which is to be adopted in Quito, will provide governments, cities and local and regional actors with a globally applicable framework for action for the sustainable development of cities.
The Federal Government is committed to ensuring that cities are recognised as development actors in an integrated urban development policy. Only if cities and regions are strong and have a say in their urban development concerns can they offer a high quality of life for their citizens and enable democratic participation. In the negotiations at Habitat III, Germany will contribute its experience with the principle of subsidiarity, local self-government with the provision of adequate financial resources, urban development and housing promotion and the model of the compact European city.
The World Conference of Cities takes place every twenty years. Habitat III follows on thematically from the two previous conferences in Vancouver (1976) and Istanbul (1996). Around 30,000 participants from 180 countries are expected to attend the conference in Quito, including delegates from governments, academia and civil society organisations. On the third day, Federal Building Minister Hendricks will be travelling on to Costa Rica. State Secretary for Construction Gunther Ad-ler will accompany the German delegation together with State Secretary for Development Kitschelt until the end of the conference on 20 October.
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