"International Day of Forests" on 21 March

Published 19 March 2021

The forest - what an achievement!

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.

"Rebuilding Forests - A Pathway to Recreation and Well-Being".is the motto of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) for this year's "International Day of Forests". The Food and Agriculture Organization is thus drawing attention to two things:

There is a need for action in reforestation. It is not for nothing that this day was also chosen as the starting point of the UN Decade for the Restoration of Ecosystems (2021-2030). The necessary measures vary from region to region. In Germany, storm damage, drought and beetle infestations have recently led to record tree deaths. In some areas, entire forests are drought-stricken. According to the latest forest condition report, only 20 percent of forest trees still have a healthy crown. But reconstruction is in full swing. The Federal Government, through the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL), is supporting reforestation and sustainable forest management with comprehensive financial aid. 277,000 hectares will be reforested over the next few years. Important projects on the broad range of forest issues are supported by the Support programme for renewable raw materials of the BMEL and with the Forest Climate Fund which the BMEL is supporting together with the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU).
With eight key messages the FAO shows how human well-being is closely linked to the condition of forests - and not just through climate change.
For the forest provides us with a cornucopia of Ecosystem services:

Living and working space forest: This does not only concern indigenous peoples who live in or with the forest and who are directly affected by the destruction of the forests. Even in an industrialised country like Germany, people live from the forest and its products: More than one million people are employed in the forest and timber economic cluster in this country.
Recreational forest: Germany is a forest country with a forest area share of 32 percent. Germans are traditionally said to have a close relationship with the forest. Statistically, this is expressed in over two billion visits to the forest each year. More than two thirds of Germans regularly visit the forest. On average, each visitor spends at least 20 minutes in the "green lungs". Recreation is the number one reason for visiting the forest.
Climate protector forest: With climate change, we are reminded of the importance of the carbon storage capacity in the biomass of forests. Through photosynthesis, trees remove the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. In this way, forests counteract climate change. Over 4.5 billion tons of CO2 are bound in the forest. Per hectare, this adds up to the equivalent of 114 tonnes of carbon in our domestic forests.
Biodiversity: More than 10,000 animal and plant species live in Germany's forests, making them a hotspot of biological diversity. In our forests there are almost 200 species of trees and shrubs, more than 1,000 herbaceous plant species, almost 700 different mosses and more than 1,000 different species of lichens as well as uncounted species of fungi. And from red deer to the dwarf shrew, 140 different vertebrate species live in Germany's forests.
Many other ecosystem services of the forest, such as oxygen production, air cooling and air filtration, usually receive too little attention. Yet forests, water, soil and atmosphere are inextricably linked. The forest body forms the link between the elements: For example, forests have a considerable influence on the atmospheric as well as the soil water cycle with their evaporation rate. They retain surface water with their rough structure and, together with their gigantic root system, provide formidable protection against erosion. In mountain forests, this network even forms the most important avalanche protection. And on top of that, forests are soil builders - at one centimetre in 100 years, it may seem slow to us. On a geological scale, however, it is rapid.

An overview of the Ecosystem services offered by the infographic.

Source: PM of the FNR from 19.03.2021

Keywords: DE-News, Wood construction, Climate protection, Environmental policy, Life cycle assessment

Published 10. February 2016

Expanding timber construction protects climate and does not have to be more expensive

Timber construction can be cheaper than standard construction - At the same time significantly better CO2 balance

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.

You can find the program here: www.legep.de

The five calculated buildings:

The foundations for the calculations were laid in the following project: https://www.dbu.de/OPAC/ab/DBU-Abschlussbericht-AZ-29239.pdf.

Source:

Keywords:
Building materials / Construction, DE-News, Wood construction, Climate protection, New books and studies, Life cycle assessment, Ecology

Published 28 September 2020

Previous action is not sufficient for the creation of affordable housing

Following the interim results of the Housing Summit and the Building Land Commission, demands are being voiced by the scientific community: The still tight housing markets require the use of additional instruments by the federal and state governments. Otherwise, the turnaround towards affordable housing cannot be achieved.

Berlin/Düsseldorf/Mannheim. In view of the continuing undersupply of affordable housing, researchers from the University of Mannheim, the Macroeconomic Policy Institute of the Hans Böckler Foundation (IMK) and the German Institute of Urban Affairs (Difu) are calling on the federal government to set up a participation fund for municipal housing companies and better framework conditions for the establishment of municipal land funds.

According to Sebastian Dullien, Scientific Director of the IMK, there is no sign that the housing situation in the metropolitan areas and their surrounding areas will ease as a result of the Corona crisis. "The declining capacity utilisation in the construction sector makes increased public housing construction also sensible in terms of economic policy. It is an opportunity that additional construction demand no longer inevitably leads to higher prices," says Dullien. "Public housing construction is not only an important pillar of the economy, it also has far-reaching social, economic and ecological effects in the long term. The housing shortage in metropolitan areas is forcing people with low and medium incomes out of attractive urban locations, thus leading to segregation that can endanger the cohesion of society," adds Ricarda Pätzold, housing market expert at Difu.

A participation fund of the federal government, which should be handled by the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau, should strengthen the equity base of municipal housing companies. "A higher equity ratio strengthens the refinancing and investment capacity for the new construction of affordable housing, for those enterprises where this is currently a restriction. One advantage of this instrument is that the equity fund - in contrast to earlier programmes - can focus its support specifically on those housing companies that create affordable housing in tight markets," says Tom Krebs, Professor of Economics at the University of Mannheim.

The availability of land is currently proving to be the "bottleneck" in almost all fields of urban development - housing construction, commercial development, social infrastructure, etc. The availability of land is a key instrument of public welfare-oriented housing policy. Municipal land funds are central instruments of public welfare-oriented housing policy. Arno Bunzel, head of the research department Urban Development, Law and Social Affairs at Difu, clarifies: "Municipal land funds are central instruments of housing policy oriented towards the common good. We must therefore improve their effectiveness. The federal government and the Länder should contribute their land for which they have no own use to the respective municipal land funds. In this context, the provisions in the federal government's Land Subsidisation Directive must be further developed from an urban development perspective." The financial situation of the municipalities must be described as the main obstacle to the implementation of viable land funds. "The federal states should design the budgetary and municipal supervisory regulations for their municipalities in such a way that municipal land funds have adequate refinancing conditions that are based on economic criteria and not on traditional cameral budgetary law," says Carsten Kühl, Institute Director of Difu.

Details and download
Policy Paper "Participation Funds and Land Funds to Strengthen Public and Affordable Housing".
www.difu.de/15780

Authors of the policy paper:
Prof. Dr Sebastian Dullien, Macroeconomic Policy Institute of the Hans Böckler Foundation
Prof. Dr Tom Krebs, University of Mannheim
Prof. Dr. Arno Bunzel, Prof. Dr. Carsten Kühl and Dipl.-Ing. Ricarda Pätzold from the German Institute of Urban Affairs (Difu)

Short info: German Institute of Urban Affairs
As the largest urban research institute in the German-speaking world, the German Institute of Urban Affairs (Difu) is the research, training and information institution for cities, municipal associations and planning communities. Whether urban and regional development, municipal economy, urban planning, social issues, environment, transport, culture, law, administrative issues or municipal finance: Founded in 1973, the independent Berlin-based institute - with a further location in Cologne - deals with an extensive range of topics and, on a scientific level, deals in a practical way with all the tasks that municipalities have to deal with today and in the future. The Verein für Kommunalwissenschaften e.V. is the sole shareholder of the research institute, which is run as a non-profit limited company.

Keywords:
Soil & land consumption, DE-News, Communities, Affordable housing, Housing, Housing policy

Published 19 March 2021

DIN recommendations for the planning of resource-efficient buildings

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.

Modern construction must be sustainable, and keep the many different aspects in mind: the use as well as the costs, the consumption of resources and the cultural background. The energy used for new buildings and facilities must be planned precisely, and the subsequent energy requirements must also be calculated in such a way that they can be met with as little input as possible. Last but not least, the construction processes themselves should also be resource-efficient. In Germany, the Resource Efficiency Program (ProgRess) exists for this purpose.

Aim of the expert recommendation VDI-EE 4802 Sheet 1 is to enable those involved in construction to design their building projects in a resource-efficient manner, and in particular to minimise the use of fossil energy raw materials and the emission of greenhouse gases. The aim is to achieve an optimal, contemporary compromise between economic efficiency and sustainability.

Resource efficiency can be planned and measured. The VDI has developed the VDI 4800 series of guidelines which contains basic principles and methodology, strategies and evaluation procedures. The new VDI expert recommendation VDI-EE 4802 Sheet 1 fleshes out the contents of the directive and helps with its application in practice. The expert recommendation is aimed at those responsible in the construction and real estate industry, politics and administration.

VDI-EE 4802 Sheet 1 provides guidance on the determination of resource efficiency, which results from the determination of the quantitative use of resources. In this sheet, the spatial level of a building is considered, primarily for residential and non-residential buildings, as well as temporary buildings. Further sheets of the expert recommendation will deal with resource efficiency in neighbourhoods or cities.

Publisher of the VDI expert recommendation VDI-EE 4802 Sheet 1 "Resource Efficiency in Construction - Buildings" is the VDI Society for Construction and Building Technology (GBG). The expert recommendation was published in March 2021 and can be ordered at a price starting at EUR 110.90 from Beuth Verlag. Online orders can be placed at www.vdi.de/4802 or www.beuth.de possible. VDI members receive a 10 percent discount on all VDI guidelines. VDI guidelines can be ordered in many public display free of charge.

Technical contact:
Dr. Frederike Wittkopp
VDI Society for Construction and Building Technology (GBG)
Phone: +49 211 6214-466
Email: wittkopp@vdi.de

Keywords:
DE-News, Factor X, Resource efficiency

Published 9 October 2019

Federal Cabinet approves 98 GW expansion target for PV

but only until 2030

The Federal Cabinet today approved a draft for the Climate Protection Act and now mentions, among other things, a new expansion target for photovoltaics in the Climate Protection Programme 2030. The law now enters the parliamentary consultations.

Link
www.solarserver.de/...kabinett-beschliesst-98-gw-ausbauziel-fuer-photovoltaik.html

Keywords:
100% EEs, DE-News, Renewable, PV, PlusEnergy house/settlement, Environmental policy