Dr Hans-Carsten Kühne and Prof Dr Mario Schmidt join the IBU Advisory Board with immediate effect.


The IBU Advisory Board (SVR) of IBU appointed two new members to the board at its most recent meeting in June 2024. Dr Hans-Carsten Kühne from the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) and Prof Dr Mario Schmidt from Pforzheim University will strengthen the SVR’s expertise with immediate effect.

Dr Hans-Carsten Kühne studied at the Technical University of Berlin and completed his doctorate at the Chair of Building Physics and Building Materials at the Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg. He was managing director of an engineering office in Berlin until 2003. After joining the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing in 2003, he was responsible for binders and concrete technology in the “Building Materials” group.
Since 2012, he has been Head of Department 7.4 “Building Materials Technology”. He is a member of numerous national and international standardisation committees (CEN, DIN BAST BAW) and chairman of the German mirror committee on concrete repair. His core areas of expertise include high-performance and self-compacting concretes, rheology, additive manufacturing in the construction industry, geopolymers, sustainability of building materials and the utilisation of residual materials in the construction industry.

Prof Dr Mario Schmidt is Professor (C3) at the Faculty of Business and Law at Pforzheim University and teaches in the fields of sustainability and operations research. He heads the university’s Institute for Industrial Ecology (INEC), which he founded in 2010, and has successfully established the degree programmes “Business Administration/Resource Efficiency Management” (B.Sc.) and “Life Cycle & Sustainability” (M.Sc.) as well as two doctoral programmes together with KIT Karlsruhe.

Mario Schmidt studied physics and astronomy and completed his doctorate on environmentally oriented material flow analyses. Since 1985 he has worked in the fields of emission control, climate protection, environmental management and life cycle assessment. He is responsible for numerous studies and expert reports for federal and state ministries and has published various books, including on material flow analyses, environmental management, life cycle assessments and carbon footprints. Schmidt has contributed to several ISO standards and VDI guidelines (ISO 14051/52/53, ISO 14067, ISO 14068-1) and is chairman of the VDI 4800 “Resource Efficiency” guidelines committee. He is currently a member of the Resource Commission of the German Federal Environment Agency and co-chairman of the Environmental Label Jury (Blue Angel). Prof Schmidt can look back on decades of experience in the field of Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) and carbon footprinting.

He has been significantly involved in numerous LCAs for the Federal Environment Agency or for many companies, is a recurring critical reviewer and has also worked methodically on the further development of life cycle assessments and carbon footprints.

IBU Managing Director Florian Pronold welcomes the appointment and the willingness of the two experts to work on the Expert Council: “We look forward to their contributions to updating the IBU programme and monitoring our programme rules, in which our Expert Council has ensured the high quality of our EPDs since the very beginning!”

The Advisory Board: Independent Experts Ensure Quality

As the top-level expert body, the Advisory Board ensures the quality of work at the IBU. The members of the Advisory Board are experts from such areas as science and standardisation, construction and environmental authorities, and nature conservation associations. They work on a pro bono basis to monitor compliance with standards and to ensure the quality of the verification process in the IBU’s EPD programme. The Advisory Board is responsible for the review and approval of the Product Category Rules (PCR). Life cycle assessment issues are also discussed at Advisory Board meetings, e.g. in relation to specific EPD projects. When selecting and appointing independent verifiers, the Advisory Board sets high standards, so as to ensure thorough testing of the EPDs.

Members of the IBU Advisory Board:

  • Dr. Frank Werner, Environment & Development Zürich (Chair)
  • Dr. Tanja Brockmann, BBSR Berlin
  • Prof. Dr. Arno Frühwald, Zentrum Holzwirtschaft, Universität Hamburg
  • Prof. Dr. Bruno Hauer, TH Nürnberg
  • Dr.-Ing. Hans-Carsten Kühne, BAM Berlin
  • Dipl.-Ing. Markus Tauber, UBA, Dessau
  • Johannes Kreißig, DGNB Stuttgart
  • Dr. Eva Schmincke, DNR Tübingen
  • Prof. Dr. Mario Schmidt, Pforzheim