4:16 min - from 9 Oct 2019
Project Info: http://sdg21.eu/db/holzhybridhaus-skaio
In the Federal Republic of Germany, more than 720 million square metres of building surface have been covered with polystyrene since the Second World War.
Now, according to manager magazins, a series of major fires in industry has startled the insurance industry. Accordingly, the insurance industry now openly advises against not only Styrofoam as an insulating material for commercial enterprises, but also against the raw material polystyrene and the related EPS rigid foam.
"The critical fire behaviour of EPS rigid foam is well known," a spokeswoman for the insurance association GDV told manager-magazin.de.
You can find the whole article from 3.1.2017 in the manager magazin
Keywords:
Stock, DE-News, Resource efficiency, Environmental policy, Housing policy, Thermal insulation, Economics
On the occasion of the meeting of the EU Ministers for Urban Development and Territorial Cohesion on the "New Leipzig Charter", Daniela Wagner, Spokesperson for Urban Development of the Alliance 90/The Greens in the German Bundestag, explains:
We welcome the "New Leipzig Charter". Without the transformational power of cities and the ideas and energy of their inhabitants, we will not be able to meet the challenges of the climate crisis. Nevertheless, the Charter contains considerable gaps. The guiding principle of the resilient city is missing. The development of robust and resilient cities is important in order to better assess risks and to be able to recognise and prevent dangers in good time. Nor is the model of the healthy city mentioned - despite the heat waves caused by the climate crisis, a never-ending stream of air pollutants from fossil combustion engines and the current challenge of a global pandemic.
In addition, there is a huge gap between the claims of the "New Leipzig Charter" and the actions of the Federal Government, which after all helped to develop the Charter. It would be nice if the content of the Charter were reflected to some extent in the policies of the Federal Government. For example, it is hard to understand why the paper talks about reducing land consumption, but the Federal Government does the exact opposite and reintroduces the land-grabbing paragraph 13b in the Building Code, which is highly questionable in terms of environmental and housing policy, or pushes through the construction of age-old plans from the Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan.
If the federal government is serious about affordable and well-designed housing being fundamental to urban development policy, then it should finally provide more affordable housing, double federal funding for social housing construction and introduce the New Housing Community Benefit. The energy turnaround in existing buildings should finally be advanced. With the "Fair Heat" action plan, we have presented a package of measures that financially incentivises investments in energy modernisation of housing with energy savings and the switch to renewable heat and significantly lowers the hurdles for the investments.
The statement in the Charter that urban transport and mobility systems should be efficient, climate-neutral and multimodal is also correct. Unfortunately, there is a considerable lack of implementation of the transport turnaround. What the federal government has done so far in terms of strengthening bus and rail pales in comparison to the billions in subsidies for the automotive industry. At the same time, the federal government is putting the brakes on the expansion of electromobility and has parked the topic of charging stations on the hard shoulder.
Source: PM of BÜNDNIS 90/DIE GRÜNEN in the German Bundestag from 30.11.2020
Keywords:
Soil & land consumption, DE-News, Mix of uses, Resource efficiency, SDG 2030, City, Environmental policy, Housing policy
38:24 min, from 11.03.2021
In this tutorial, Anne Albrecht, building consultant at Faktor X Agentur, shows you in detail how to enter an example house in massive construction into the climate and resource protection tool (KuRT) from start to finish.
Keywords:
Building materials / Construction, DE-News, Faktor X / ResScore, Movies, Movies 11 to 45 Min, Recycling, Resource efficiency, Tools, Life cycle assessment
Annual DIW Heat Monitor based on data from energy service provider ista Deutschland GmbH: Heating energy demand in residential buildings declines again for the first time since 2015 - Rising prices, however, cause heating expenditure to increase by 2.4 percent - CO2emissions have fallen by 21 percent overall since 2010, but by only 2.6 percent when adjusted for temperature - Energy-efficient renovation in residential buildings almost stagnant
Last year - for the first time since 2015 - tenants in Germany used slightly less heating (minus 3.2 per cent). However, at an annual average of 130 kWh per square metre of heated living space, the heating energy requirement in apartment buildings is now only back at the 2010 level. CO2-emissions have not fallen nearly as much as they would have to in order to achieve the 2030 climate targets: adjusted for temperature, they have only fallen by 2.6 per cent since 2010. These are the key findings of this year's heating monitor calculated by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin) on the basis of data from energy service provider ista Deutschland GmbH. They are based on the heating bills of 300,000 multi-party houses in Germany and are adjusted for climate and weather conditions.
"If we only look at the absolute reduction in CO2 emissions, appearances are deceptive" Jan Stede
As energy prices for heating oil and natural gas rose by an average of 5.6 per cent last year, tenants spent 2.4 per cent more on space heating while demand fell. The regional differences in heating energy requirements and prices are very large. In western German households, seven per cent more is heated per square metre than in eastern German households. In 2019, heating energy requirements were highest in the Schleswig-Holstein Southwest and East Frisia regions, and lowest in central Mecklenburg/Rostock and Allgäu. Heating energy cost the most in Saarland and the least in Hamburg.
According to the study, there has been a significant overall reduction in CO2-emissions in the residential building sector have fallen by 20.7 per cent since 2010. However, this is largely due to the warmer winters. Adjusted for temperature and weather conditions, CO2-emissions have only fallen by 2.6 per cent over the past ten years.
"If we look at the absolute reduction in CO2-emissions, appearances are deceptive. The reduction of around 21 per cent, which would already make the climate targets unattainable, is hardly due to efforts to increase building efficiency. There is therefore no reason to scale back efforts to reduce emissions," says DIW economist Jan Stede, summarising the results.
"A sober assessment of ten years of building refurbishment shows that energy-efficient refurbishment does not automatically lead to less CO2. Climate policy measures must provide the right incentives for everyone involved: for landlords to invest and for tenant households to consume sparingly," comments Thomas Zinnöcker, CEO of energy and property service provider ista, on the results of the study. "More focus on results, unbureaucratic implementation and accompanying measures for consumers will make climate protection in buildings more effective."
Investment in the energy-efficient refurbishment of existing residential buildings is still too low to achieve the climate targets in the building sector. The plan was to increase the refurbishment rate to two per cent per year. Most recently, however, it was only one per cent. While energy-efficient refurbishment still accounted for a third of all measures in the building stock in 2010, in 2019 it was only a quarter.
The authors of the DIW study are therefore calling for stronger incentives for energy-efficient building renovations. "The higher subsidy rate for energy-efficient refurbishment and the planned CO2-pricing from next year could create additional incentives to invest more in this area again," hopes study author Franziska Schütze. With the CO2-However, care should be taken to ensure that social effects are cushioned. Tenants, especially those on low incomes, are disproportionately burdened by higher energy prices and have little influence on the building's energy efficiency and energy source. "Reimbursement of the income from the CO2-pricing in the form of a climate premium would relieve the burden on low and middle incomes and at the same time minimise the incentive effect of higher CO2-prices," suggests Jan Stede.
A commentary by the German Solar Energy Society (DGS) from 2 October 2020:
www.dgs.de/news/en-detail/021020-lediglich-effizient-klimaschutz-im-gebaeude/
Source: DIW press release from 30 September 2020
Keywords:
Stock, DE-News, Research, Climate protection, New books and studies, Thermal insulation
