Recycling companies can't get rid of their goods because they might be contaminated. About conflicts between resource conservation and environmental protection.
Source: taz article from 15. 7. 2016
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.
Keywords:
Stock, DE-News, Resource efficiency, Environmental policy, Life cycle assessment
Difu city survey "OB-Barometer 2020" gives municipalities' assessment of the future*
Berlin/Cologne. Climate protection and adaptation to the consequences of climate change will become increasingly important for cities. This is one of the findings of the survey of (Lord) Mayors of large German cities* conducted by the German Institute of Urban Affairs in January and February 2020. Almost two-thirds of the respondents named climate protection as an important municipal issue for the future. This means that the number of mayors who attribute an increase in importance to this field of municipal policy action has more than tripled compared to the previous year. Future surveys will show how strongly this result was influenced by the protests of the 'Fridays for Future' movement.
More than half of the respondents also see a growing need for action in the area of mobility. This topic, which already ranked second among the future topics last year, has thus once again gained in importance for city leaders. This may also have something to do with the fact that urban mobility is an essential aspect of municipal climate protection. The top future topic of the two previous years, digitalization, is in third place in the survey among the most important future topics for municipal policy. A good third of respondents believe that digitisation will become more important for cities in the next five years. Other municipal policy issues to which the mayors attach particularly high relevance for the future are the creation of affordable housing, the financial situation of the cities and the strengthening of the economy.
City leaders agree that the future challenges facing cities will require a high level of funding. This is particularly true for the topics of mobility and climate protection. Almost 90 percent of those for whom these are key issues for the future expect to have to make large or very large investments in these areas. The situation is similar in the areas of digitisation and the creation of affordable housing: here, around three quarters of the city leaders who see digitisation and housing among the most important future issues for cities still consider the future financing requirements in these policy areas to be high or very high.
* The survey was conducted before the Corona pandemic in Germany pushed other issues into the background. Even if normality should have returned to some extent in the cities after the state of emergency, the view of the political decision-makers on the municipal world will be different. Difu will therefore publish the full results of the OB-Barometer 2020 at a later date, possibly linked to current surveys that include "Corona aspects". This report therefore focuses primarily on the sub-area of "future issues".
Source: PM Difu from 12.5.2020
Keywords:
DE-News, Renewable, Climate emergency, Climate protection, Communities, New books and studies, City, Transition Town, Environmental policy
At their meeting in Weimar on 24 and 25 September, the building ministers of the federal states adopted resolutions on social housing, the use of ecological building materials and the digitalisation of the building permit procedure.
The EU's plan to become involved in the area of public housing promotion within the framework of the new "InvestEU" fund was critically assessed. The Federal Government was therefore called upon to advocate a modification of the programme so that subsidies are only granted if the provisions of regional, national or federal subsidy regimes are observed, in particular if a rent and occupancy obligation is provided for. The Chairman of the Conference of Building Ministers, Thuringia's Infrastructure Minister Benjamin-Immanuel Hoff, said: "It remains an important task to create affordable housing in Germany. The federal government must continue to provide at least the same level of funding. To make faster progress, we would need more money in the system. The EU's commitment is therefore to be welcomed in principle. But we must ensure that the money also reaches social housing, and we agree that this can best be done through the established funding programmes of the Länder."
Anne Katrin Bohle, State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of the Interior, for Building and the Home Affairs, explained: "The creation of affordable housing continues to be a top priority. Two years ago, we put together a unique package of measures with the joint housing offensive of the Federal Government, the federal states and the municipalities. The results are extraordinarily successful: all the central resolutions of the Housing Summit have been implemented or are on their way. We have thus set a decisive course and can look back on good results. This is reflected in particular in the encouraging figures for building completions and building permits. At the end of February 2021, we will draw a final conclusion together with the federal states and municipalities at a balance congress." Hamburg's Senator for Urban Development and Housing, Dorothee Stapelfeldt: "Germany needs more affordable housing. With the amendments to the law formulated in the draft bill on the Building Land Mobilisation Act, we can come a good deal closer to our goal of building 1.5 million new homes, which was set at the 2018 Housing Summit, also in terms of a land policy geared to the common good. A speedy implementation of the draft law is therefore expressly to be welcomed from Hamburg's point of view. What we are currently concerned about is the structural change in our inner cities, which has been greatly accelerated by the Corona pandemic. Here we must now effectively support the municipalities. The Ministers of Construction ask the Federal Government to commission the BBSR with a study to analyse the developments in the inner cities in order to create a good basis for decisions.
In addition, we are setting up an open-state working group under the leadership of Hamburg on the 'development of inner cities' at the level of the state secretaries." Ina Scharrenbach, Minister for Home Affairs, Municipal Affairs, Building and Equality of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia: "With the resolutions we are laying the foundations for future building policy. The promotion of public housing construction, the use of ecological building materials and the digitalisation of building permit procedures are central building blocks. The common goal of the Federal Government and the Länder: The creation of affordable housing and this as quickly as possible. Especially in the current situation, we notice how important it is to have a home that meets the needs of each and every individual. Even though Corona has dominated the headlines in recent months: Housing is a fundamental part of the public's basic needs. That is why we will not let up in our efforts to further improve the framework conditions for developers and investors in order to further boost housing construction. Because more housing is the best protection for tenants against rising rents."
Building with wood
After the amendment of the model building code last year laid the foundation for wood to be used for load-bearing components with higher fire protection requirements, among other things, the focus was now on the use of ecological insulation materials and further follow-up amendments. The conference reaffirmed the importance of sustainable ecological building materials as a comparatively simple contribution to protecting resources and the climate. However, combustible building materials can become a safety hazard if used incorrectly. "We do not want the good reputation of ecological building materials to suffer as a result of damage caused by inadequate safety precautions," said the Chairman of the Conference of Building Ministers, Thuringia's Minister of Infrastructure Prof. Dr. Benjamin-Immanuel Hoff. It is therefore important that the model timber construction guideline, which describes the details for the use of wood, can be put into force quickly. Further findings that should enable even more extensive use of wood are expected from various ongoing research projects.
Source: PM of 25 September 2020
Keywords:
DE-News, Wood construction, Affordable housing, Housing, Housing policy
The federal government's goal of reducing daily land consumption to 30 hectares per day is a long way off. Currently, daily land consumption for settlement and transport still averages 66 hectares per day. This year's 30-hectare day thus fell on 15 June. Since the beginning of the year until this day, so much land has been built up nationwide that no more land may be used for settlement and transport until the end of the year if the 30 hectare target is to be met.
Read the whole article from 19.6.2017:
www.nabu.de/news/2017/06/22630.html
Keywords:
Greening / climate adaptation, Soil & land consumption, DE-News, SDG 2030, Environmental policy, Housing policy
