From EPDs to LEED Cer­tifi­cates to CO2-Neu­tral Urban Districts

Kay Kill­mann, Pres­i­dent of the Ger­man Green Build­ing Asso­ci­a­tion (GGBA), has a mis­sion: ensur­ing that envi­ron­men­tal prod­uct dec­la­ra­tions are avail­able for every prod­uct installed in a build­ing. Dur­ing a pre­sen­ta­tion at the EUREF cam­pus in Berlin, he empha­sised that this is because ‘they con­tribute to the con­struc­tion of sus­tain­able build­ings and are also very much in demand’. His pre­sen­ta­tion was held for mem­bers of the Insti­tut Bauen und Umwelt e.V. (IBU), who are com­mit­ted to sus­tain­able build­ing and who were meet­ing at the EUREF cam­pus for this year’s Mem­bers’ Day. The focus was on pro­vid­ing first-hand expe­ri­ence with the LEED build­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tion sys­tem as exem­pli­fied by the cer­ti­fied build­ings on the 55,000 square metre site as well as allow­ing for a live­ly pro­fes­sion­al exchange.

IBU Mem­bers Impressed by Ref­er­ence Loca­tion for Sus­tain­able Ener­gy Solutions

‘We insti­tut­ed our annu­al Mem­bers’ Day so that we could meet and, togeth­er, first-hand, exam­ine build­ings that have been suc­cess­ful­ly com­mis­sioned and cer­ti­fied sus­tain­able, giv­ing us the oppor­tu­ni­ty to take a look at their effec­tive­ness,’ explained the IBU press spokesper­son. Since 2008, the EUREF cam­pus has been the site of the trans­for­ma­tion of an indus­tri­al mon­u­ment into both a CO2-neu­tral urban dis­trict and a ref­er­ence site for sus­tain­able ener­gy solu­tions. This office and sci­ence cam­pus serves as a mod­el of fea­si­ble and afford­able ener­gy tran­si­tion. Here, the Ger­man government’s 2050 cli­mate tar­gets had already been achieved by Jan­u­ary 2014. The IBU’s mem­bers were impressed by the mul­ti­ple-award-win­ning over­all con­cept, in which research and train­ing facil­i­ties, along with more than 100 sus­tain­abil­i­ty-ori­ent­ed com­pa­nies, have rent­ed ener­gy-effi­cient rooms in mod­ern build­ings. All of the new build­ings con­struct­ed to date have been award­ed either gold or plat­inum LEED cer­tifi­cates. They were designed as ener­gy-effi­cient green build­ings and are inte­grat­ed into an intel­li­gent ener­gy grid. For the ten­ants, this means reduced ener­gy con­sump­tion and low­er oper­at­ing costs.

IBU Pro­vides Dig­i­tal, Need-Based Prod­uct Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Information

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the sus­tain­abil­i­ty, con­struc­tion, and build­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tion indus­tries all agree on the impor­tance of well-found­ed prod­uct infor­ma­tion for sus­tain­able con­struc­tion. Envi­ron­men­tal prod­uct dec­la­ra­tions (EPDs) based on life-cycle-assess­ments, i.e., which are sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly sound, trans­par­ent, and stan­dard-com­pli­ant, pro­vide basic infor­ma­tion for assess­ing the eco­log­i­cal qual­i­ty of a build­ing. ‘With their EPDs, the IBU’s mem­ber com­pa­nies and asso­ci­a­tions are mak­ing an impor­tant con­tri­bu­tion to sus­tain­able con­struc­tion,’ stat­ed Kill­mann, who went on to praise the organisation’s excel­lent coop­er­a­tion with the build­ing mate­ri­als indus­try as well as the qual­i­ty of IBU EPDs. In order to increas­ing­ly sim­pli­fy tasks for such users as archi­tects, plan­ners, and audi­tors, as well as to fur­ther pro­mote sus­tain­able con­struc­tion, the IBU makes EPDs avail­able in dig­i­tal for­mat on its IBU.data plat­form, facil­i­tat­ing their use for fur­ther pro­cess­ing – e.g. in Build­ing Infor­ma­tion Mod­el­ing method­ol­o­gy (BIM). In addi­tion, the IBU is also devel­op­ing a spe­cial prod­uct infor­ma­tion sys­tem to allow man­u­fac­tur­ers to specif­i­cal­ly meet the infor­ma­tion require­ments of the dif­fer­ent build­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tion sys­tems. Whether or not an EPD already exists, all cer­ti­fi­ca­tion-rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion about a spe­cif­ic prod­uct can be com­piled in a matrix and trans­mit­ted as a fact sheet that sup­plies the infor­ma­tion need­ed to meet the indi­vid­ual require­ments. IBU mem­bers who have already cre­at­ed an EPD for their prod­uct will be ver­i­fied by the IBU. Non-mem­bers, how­ev­er, are also meant to be able to use the IBU infor­ma­tion system.

‘LEED Build­ing Site’ Requires Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Inte­gral Planning

Gen­er­al con­trac­tor Wolff & Müller cement­ed its com­mit­ment to sus­tain­abil­i­ty by mak­ing it a com­po­nent of its cor­po­rate pol­i­cy; the com­pa­ny was con­tract­ed to con­struct near­ly all of the build­ings on the EUREF cam­pus. Wolff & Müller iden­ti­fied a num­ber of actions that need­ed to be tak­en to enable the devel­op­ment of con­crete sus­tain­abil­i­ty indi­ca­tors for mea­sur­ing and illu­mi­nat­ing the company’s suc­cess with its own under­tak­ings. Man­ag­ing Direc­tor Hubert Nop­per and Project Man­ag­er Michael Schlade­bach pro­vid­ed infor­ma­tion about the activ­i­ties of this CO2-neu­tral com­pa­ny, which moved into offices on the EUREF cam­pus in Sep­tem­ber 2016. ‘We are well-versed with the spe­cial fea­tures of a LEED con­struc­tion site – we work close­ly togeth­er with our clients and con­sult not only them, but every­one involved in the project,’ says Schlade­bach. ‘Sus­tain­able con­struc­tion means tak­ing sus­tain­abil­i­ty require­ments into account at an ear­ly stage of the plan­ning’. Up-to-date data sheets with sus­tain­abil­i­ty-rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion on indi­vid­ual con­struc­tion prod­ucts are extreme­ly help­ful. For the audi­ence mem­bers from the build­ing mate­ri­als indus­try, this was both a val­i­da­tion and an appeal. Acces­si­bil­i­ty to the right con­tact per­sons is equal­ly impor­tant, espe­cial­ly in cas­es, ‘where we have ques­tions about mate­ri­als or envi­ron­men­tal require­ments’. Ulti­mate­ly, a mul­ti­tude of fac­tors must be tak­en into con­sid­er­a­tion in the devel­op­ment of the build­ing site, from appro­pri­ate waste dis­pos­al to doc­u­men­ta­tion to col­lab­o­ra­tion with subcontractors.

The next pre­sen­ter was one such sub­con­trac­tor, Axel Hördt, Head of Appli­ca­tion Cen­ter Build­ing at Schnei­der Elec­tric, which is also a build­ing ten­ant. He pre­sent­ed infor­ma­tion on intel­li­gent ener­gy man­age­ment on the EUREF cam­pus – from ener­gy gen­er­a­tion and stor­age to con­sump­tion. ‘Ener­gy will only be con­sumed when some­one enters a room. Light sen­sors indi­cate which rooms are occu­pied’. Using this as an exam­ple, he illus­trat­ed how the ener­gy gen­er­at­ed, which is pre­dom­i­nant­ly CO2-neu­tral, is put to effi­cient use. Intel­li­gent decen­tralised pow­er grids, known as ‘micro smart grids’, ensure opti­mum man­age­ment of grid and ener­gy loads. He demon­strat­ed how state-of-the-art infor­ma­tion and automa­tion tech­nolo­gies enable con­tin­u­ous mon­i­tor­ing and flex­i­ble adjust­ments that com­pen­sate for the con­stant fluc­tu­a­tion between ener­gy sup­ply and demand.