In October 2019, the Goldbeck employee multi-storey car park in Hirschberg received a gold certificate from the German Sustainable Building Council – as the first ever multi-storey car park in Germany (read the press release from 2019 here). About four years later, we can announce the next premiere: With the multiple certificate for our system, the DGNB has pre-certified a repetitive standard in car park construction for the first time.

The German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB – Deutsche Gesellschaft für Nachhaltiges Bauen) is a non-profit organization founded in 2007 with the aim of transforming the construction and real estate industry in a sustainable way. Today, the DGNB is one of Europe's largest networks for sustainable building. In addition to individual building certificates, it has also been awarding multiple certificates for several years – an assessment of building systems and repetitive standards. The advantage: for every building built or renovated according to this model, the documentation effort for an individual building certificate is reduced.

Despite good deconstructibility and recyclability, car parks have so far made up a comparatively small proportion of the building types assessed by the certifier. According to the DGNB website, only eleven projects across Europe have been certified to date – Goldbeck alone has built eight. "With the first multiple certification, this number will increase significantly," says Christopher Conrads, Product Manager Car Parks at Goldbeck. "From now on, we have proof that our systematized construction method also offers considerable sustainability benefits in car park construction. Our clients benefit from this in several ways: we shorten the path to the individual car park certificate, reduce costs, and ensure a sustainable flagship." 

Goldbeck has been campaigning for the establishment of a multiple certificate at DGNB for many years. "Not only do Goldbeck clients benefit from the first multiple multi-storey car park certificate on the market, it is also an important step forward for the entire industry," adds Izabela Bürkner, Head of the Center of Expertise "Life Cycle Engineering and Climate" at Goldbeck. "Car parks are hardly subject to any legal requirements in the context of sustainability. For example, the Building Energy Act (Gebäudeenergiegesetz) is not applicable due to the open design of parking garages. Building certifications also focus primarily on closed buildings that need to be heated and cooled. Therefore, there was a lack of transparent benchmarks on the market to make the sustainability of parking garages comparable – the new DGNB multi-certificate closes this gap."