SUSTAINABILITY

The building industry is a resource-intensive economic sector. This is why green building is becoming more and more important. Green building means that in the planning, building construction, and utilisation phase of a building, the focus is on the protection of environment and resources, and the benefit for people and society. However, economic potentials should also be utilised.

So-called building certification systems implement the principles of Green Building in a total concept and assess the ecological, social and economical quality of buildings quantitatively.

National building certification systems are meanwhile in place in almost all countries of the globe. In Germany, the assessment system of the German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB) as well as the American LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) system – which is spreading also in many other countries – have become widely accepted. The British building certification system BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) is sometimes also used in Germany.

Generally, a large number of different criteria are thus established for buildings, for example, with DGNB they include life cycle costs, area utilisation, accessibility, sound insulation, and consumption of resources. The more of the criteria that are complied with, the better the total score of the building and the better the claims of the building, e.g. with DGNB Platinum, Gold, and Silver.

Considering the criteria for building products, the topic of indoor air quality plays a huge role in all building certification systems. For example, in the DGNB system, flooring materials have to meet the EMICODE EC 1 or the Blue Angel to allow them to be used in DGNB building projects.

If you’d like to know more about which product meets specific criteria: Get in contact with us.

Since the beginning of the 1990s, the UZIN ECOLINE has stood for low-emission, health-friendly products. Nothing about that has changed to this day. On the contrary: the new generation of the UZIN ECOLINE, in addition to the EMICODE EC 1, has been awarded the EMICODE EC 1 PLUS and the environmental symbol of the "Blue Angel".

This allows you meeting the preferences of public and private customers even better and entirely without any compromises regarding quality and processing. The well-known “Blue Angel” seal isn’t just required for public tender more and more frequently. Even private consumers set store by a trusted symbol for health and ecological safety.

Life Cycle Assessment, based on the 1404ff standard, systematically observes the entire life cycle of a product, from harvesting and making the raw materials, to generating power and manufacturing products, to application, waste management, and final disposal, as well as all the transportation in between. It covers all inputs such as raw materials, energy, and all outputs such as waste and emissions into the environment. The collected data is used to generate performance indicators that describe the resulting strains on the environment. For example, the performance indicator for global warming potential (or “GWP” for short) represents the quantity of carbon dioxide generated throughout the entire product life cycle, and this the climate-damaging potential of the product.