Big surprise at the Special Prize Resource Efficiency
Institut Bauen und Umwelt e.V. (IBU) awarded even two special prizes “Resource Efficiency” at the German Sustainability Award 2016.
Outstanding strategies and measures of companies throughout their complete value-added chain that lead to minimizing the use of materials, energy, land and water were awarded, as well as innovative recycling and closed loop approaches. For the second-time running, IBU was actively involved as a co-operation partner in the 9th German Sustainability Award, and together with the Foundation German Sustainability Award e.V. awarded the “Special Prize Resource Efficiency”. This year, two medium sized companies received the award: Fliegl Fahrzeugbau for their comprehensive resource efficiency approach and Procter & Gamble for playing a key part promoting sustainability in the consumer goods industry.
IBU Managing Director Dr Burkhart Lehmann presented the award together with Professor Dr Günther Bachmann (Secretary General of the German Council of Sustainable Development) to Helmut Fliegl (CEO Fliegl Fahrzeugbau) and Franz-Olaf Kallerhoff (CEO Procter & Gamble). During the award ceremony, Burkhart Lehmann emphasized that the construction material industry is already well set regarding sustainability. For more than 10 years, Environmental Product Declarations of IBU (EPDs) are an environmental information system, disclosing the environmental impacts of construction products within the context of their constructional use. According to Lehmann, it is quite outstanding that: “This system is based on a voluntary initiative of construction product and component manufacturers. They took up on their promises to promote sustainable construction“.
A special highlight: companies Interface and Evonik were two nominees for the award “Most Sustainable Enterprise” showing their commitment to sustainability in the construction industry and promoting transparent information policies by creating EPDs at IBU. Furthermore, Evonik won the award in the category “Research”.
The DGNB award in the category “Sustainable Construction” was awarded to the village Diedorf, Germany, for the Schmuttertal-Gymnasium – a building with a plus energy standard, built in a modular design in order to adapt to the changing needs for rooms, according to the pedagogical draft. DGNB operates a building certification system and for assessing the sustainability of buildings uses EPDs. In Germany, IBU is the most significant programme holder for EPDs, its members coming from more than 22 countries. Two of those members, fischerwerke and Arbeitsgemeinschaft Mauerziegel, took part in this year’s “Special Award Resource Efficiency” and thereby supported the promotion of resource saving methods far beyond the construction industry.
The dialogue forum “Re-thinking efficiency – between saving and recycling resources” left a lot of room for lively discussions during the sustainability day. IBU Chairman of the Board, Hans Peters, together with the nominees for the special price, discussed sustainable construction and resource efficiency from the perspective of the different industries. Also participating in those discussions were Arbeitsgemeinschaft Mauerziegel, represented by Dr Thomas Fehlhaber, and Dr Eva Schmincke as a representative of Environmental Associations of European Standardization. It was mentioned that mineral and renewable resources cannot be easily compared. The latter appears to be more environmentally friendly. “But also renewable resources are not abundant“, explained Dr Thomas Fehlhaber. “You need to consider that renewable resources use up land, which is also a resource.“, confirmed Dr Eva Schmincke. When looking at the key objective of resource efficiency, the different aspects of sustainability must be taken into consideration: social, economic and ecologic indicators. All parties involved agreed that “All aspects need to be looked at in conjunction with each other in order to steer into a more sustainable direction“.
You can find the live recording for the Special Prize Resource Effiiciency here.