Forestry and Wood Cluster in Bavaria: Xaver Haas and Hubert Röder succeed Gerd Wegener
Published
On 23 November, Prof. Dr. Dr. habil. Gerd Wegener passed on his office as spokesman for the Forestry and Wood Cluster in Bavaria. The handover of office took place at the Bavarian Ministry of Agriculture as part of a ceremony held to mark the 10th anniversary of the cluster initiative and the 5th anniversary of proHolz Bayern.
Forestry Minister Helmut Brunner expressly thanked Wegener for his outstanding services to the Bavarian forestry and timber industry and awarded him the Bavarian State Medal in Gold on his farewell as cluster spokesman. Wegener's successor is a dual leadership that simultaneously stands for science and practice as well as for the forestry and timber industry.
The Schweighofer Prize rewards innovative ideas, technologies, products and services along the entire value chain with the aim of increasing the competitiveness of the European forestry and timber industry.
The Schweighofer Prize has been awarded every two years since 2003 and is endowed with a total amount of € 300,000 before taxes. The Schweighofer Prize is divided into a main prize and several innovation prizes.
All natural persons and groups of persons, irrespective of their age, level of education or employment status, who have performed a service in accordance with the tender conditions are eligible to participate. Organisations may also submit entries. However, the main focus should be on people who have already achieved great things for the European forestry and timber industry or who are currently developing innovative solutions.
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.
URBAN MINING - The city as an eternal source of raw materials
Director: Sandra Czeczelitz
Production: Christoph Gretzmacher | twovisions Filmproduction
45 min. A 2012 Broadcast from 29.10.2012. 3sat
While the mountains of waste in our cities are growing, raw materials are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive worldwide. For decades, mineral resources have been shipped to the industrial nations and used in high-rise buildings, mobile phones and cars, for example. Today, metropolises are gigantic raw material mines. Researchers and companies are now starting to mine.
On 4 July 2019, the Bonn City Council declared a climate emergency for Bonn. In doing so, Bonn joins other municipalities in affirming that climate protection must have the highest priority in municipal action. At the same time, the declaration of the climate emergency sends a strong signal to national and international legislation.
With this decision, the City Council is following two citizens' petitions signed by the Fridays for Future, Parents for Future and Klimawache Bonn initiatives, among others.
Lord Mayor Ashok Sridharan explains: "I think anything that is suitable for drawing the public's attention to the issue of climate protection is helpful. As a city, we are already very active in initiating and implementing what is possible here on the ground. We are also active internationally in various climate protection alliances. As President of the global city network for sustainability ICLEI, I am constantly campaigning for the issue to be pursued with vigour at local level. The motto continues to be: think globally, act locally. The declaration of a climate emergency for Bonn is a symbolic act in this sense, which must now be followed by action. The administration will submit concrete proposals in this regard."
With the adoption of the Bonn Energy Transition and Climate Protection Masterplan, the Integrated Climate Protection and Adaptation Concept and numerous subsequent measures, the city of Bonn has contributed to the reduction of greenhouse gases. Measured against the reference year 1990, per capita CO2 emissions in Bonn fell by 22 per cent by 2014. In order to increase this contribution, further efforts must be made in the future.
However, the possibilities for exerting influence at municipal level are largely dependent on the framework conditions at national and international level. A national climate protection law with specific requirements or comprehensive information campaigns - as called for in the application - could be instruments for this.
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