‘Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Man­u­al 1.0’ is a com­pre­hen­sive ref­er­ence on sustainability

As of Feb­ru­ary 2016, a new hand­book has become avail­able to mem­bers of the Insti­tut Bauen und Umwelt e.V., which will sup­port them in their com­mu­ni­ca­tions and pub­lic rela­tions work. On 28 Jan­u­ary, the ‘Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Man­u­al 1.0’ was intro­duced with­in the con­text of the annu­al IBU com­mu­ni­ca­tions workshop.

KommunikationsmanualThe Insti­tut Bauen und Umwelt (IBU) is an asso­ci­a­tion of approx­i­mate­ly 180 build­ing mate­ri­als man­u­fac­tur­ers and asso­ci­a­tions who togeth­er have com­mit­ted them­selves to sus­tain­able build­ing. With envi­ron­men­tal prod­uct dec­la­ra­tions (EPDs), the IBU oper­ates an inde­pen­dent infor­ma­tion clear­ing­house for build­ing prod­ucts. EPDs are required to be ver­i­fied by inde­pen­dent third par­ties, and con­tain com­pre­hen­sive quan­ti­ta­tive infor­ma­tion based on life cycle assess­ments. Thus, they trans­par­ent­ly indi­cate poten­tial envi­ron­men­tal effects with­out eval­u­at­ing them, and form an impor­tant basis for envi­ron­men­tal fac­tors find­ing their way into the sus­tain­abil­i­ty eval­u­a­tions of build­ings. The range of top­ics is very com­plex, and objec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion requires exten­sive back­ground knowl­edge. ‘The con­tents of an EPD are addressed to experts’, explains Dr Burkhart Lehmann, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of the IBU. ‘Explain­ing the func­tion­al­i­ty of EPDs is not easy, but it’s an enor­mous­ly impor­tant task. This is one of the ways the IBU sup­ports its mem­bers. We have, for exam­ple, put togeth­er an explana­to­ry film that describes the func­tion of EPDs and the dif­fer­ences between the eval­u­a­tive qual­i­ty seals in a sim­ple and under­stand­able way. This is because it is impor­tant not only to reach the experts in the build­ing indus­try, but also the gen­er­al pub­lic’. As of Jan­u­ary 2016, IBU mem­bers can now also rely on a hand­book for their com­mu­ni­ca­tions work.

 The Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Man­u­al, with a glos­sary and list of abbre­vi­a­tions, serves as a ref­er­ence for mem­bers of the IBU — par­tic­u­lar­ly for employ­ees in the areas of pub­lic rela­tions, mar­ket­ing and sales. In addi­tion, the most per­ti­nent infor­ma­tion about the IBU, about sus­tain­abil­i­ty in the build­ing indus­try, life cycle assess­ments, EPDs and build­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tion are sum­marised clear­ly and descrip­tive­ly, and are sup­ple­ment­ed by esti­mates and state­ments from experts from var­i­ous areas. ‘It is par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant to us to pro­vide increas­ing­ly bet­ter sup­port to our mem­bers for their com­mu­ni­ca­tions on top­ics of sus­tain­abil­i­ty and EPDs, and to demon­strate our com­mit­ment with this com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­u­al. We give them exten­sive back­ground knowl­edge to make their dai­ly work with these top­ics eas­i­er’, explains Ani­ta Kiet­z­mann, Coor­di­na­tor of Pub­lic Rela­tions at the IBU. On 28 Jan­u­ary, togeth­er with the Angela Neu­mann PR agency, which was respon­si­ble for the con­cept and the real­i­sa­tion of the hand­book, Dr Burkhart Lehmann and Ani­ta Kiet­z­mann pre­sent­ed the com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­u­al at a work­shop in Cologne on the top­ic of com­mu­ni­ca­tion with and about EPDs. The com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­u­al is cur­rent­ly avail­able to IBU mem­bers through the IBU office as a dig­i­tal ver­sion and can be pre­ordered also as print version.

Cap­tion: Angela Neu­mann presents Dr Burkhart Lehmann with the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Man­u­al dur­ing an IBU Work­shop in Cologne.