IBU Annu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing 2023: Dr. Bar­bara Hen­dricks con­firmed as President

Hans Peters re-elect­ed as Chair­man of the Board and his deputy Dr. Roman Rupp.

The for­mer Fed­er­al Min­is­ter for Build­ing and the Envi­ron­ment, Dr. Bar­bara Hen­dricks, was con­firmed as Pres­i­dent for a fur­ther two years at the gen­er­al meet­ing of the Insti­tut Bauen und Umwelt e.V. (IBU) in the Berlin Palace. The pre­vi­ous Chair­man of the Board, Hans Peters, and his deputy, Dr. Roman Rupp, were also re-elect­ed. Michael Scharpf (Hol­cim) and Dr. Hans-Peter Breuer (GUT Gemein­schaft umwelt­fre­undlich­er Tep­pich­bo­den) were new­ly elect­ed to the Board. The Board also includes the fol­low­ing mem­bers: Dr. Thomas Fehlhaber (Uni­por), Mar­tin Glöck­n­er (Deutsche Bau­chemie), Dieter Heller (Bun­desver­band Leicht­be­ton), Frank Neu­mann (Ini­tia­tive ZINK), Hol­ger Ortleb (Bun­desver­band der Gipsin­dus­trie), Lea Ram­mel­mann (dor­mak­a­ba), Dr. Jen­nifer C. Schey­dt (BMI Group), Dr. Raban Siebers (bau­fo­rum­stahl), Prof. Josef Steret­zed­er (Lind­ner Group), Anemon Strohmey­er (Asso­ci­a­tion of the Wood-Based Pan­el Indus­try) and Dr. Hart­mut Walther (Xel­la).

The 2023 Annu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing was accom­pa­nied by a sup­port­ing pro­gram that opened with words of wel­come from the Tech­ni­cal Direc­tor of the Hum­boldt Forum Foun­da­tion, Hans-Dieter Heg­n­er, and the Pres­i­dent of the IBU, Dr. Bar­bara Hen­dricks. The sub­se­quent spe­cial­ist pre­sen­ta­tions on chal­lenges and rec­om­men­da­tions for action for build­ing prod­uct man­u­fac­tur­ers in sus­tain­able con­struc­tion, on a shad­ow price for CO2 emis­sions in the con­struc­tion indus­try and on the appli­ca­tions, ben­e­fits and qual­i­ty of EPDs in prac­tice also made it clear: with their envi­ron­men­tal prod­uct dec­la­ra­tions (EPDs), build­ing prod­uct com­pa­nies pro­vide impor­tant proof of qual­i­ty, which is an essen­tial data basis for sus­tain­able con­struc­tion. In future, it will be nec­es­sary to address all ESG (envi­ron­ment, social, gov­er­nance) objec­tives in addi­tion to the cur­rent focus on envi­ron­men­tal impacts.

A guid­ed tour of the Hum­boldt Forum by Hans-Dieter Heg­n­er for IBU mem­bers the evening before round­ed off the event. This pro­vid­ed an oppor­tu­ni­ty for per­son­al dis­cus­sions with each oth­er, the IBU office and its new Man­ag­ing Direc­tor, the for­mer Par­lia­men­tary State Sec­re­tary for Con­struc­tion and the Envi­ron­ment, Flo­ri­an Pronold, who has head­ed the asso­ci­a­tion, which now has more than 280 mem­ber com­pa­nies and asso­ci­a­tions, since July 2023.