Milestone at BAU: GOLDBECK receives first EPD
This year's BAU was a highlight for GOLDBECK for another reason: the construction and service company, which operates throughout Europe, received its first Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) from the Institut Bauen und Umwelt e.V. (IBU).
The information on the environmental impact of the system builder's car park ceiling and ramp panels was verified – further system components, including columns, external wall elements and ribbed slabs, are already being designed. Schüco also presented GOLDBECK with the “Carbon Control“ award, which recognises the joint development work and GOLDBECK's material switch to CO2-reduced aluminium.
“The verification of the EPD for our car park ceiling and ramp panels is an important step for our company. It underlines our efforts to develop sustainable products,“ explains Dr Michael Six, Managing Director of GOLDBECK Germany and Chief Sustainability Officer of the GOLDBECK Group. “Instead of using generic values from public databases, in future we will be able to provide our customers with transparent and independently verified information on the ecological properties of this system component - and all those that will follow. This makes the EPD an increasingly important tool for using the advantages of our innovative building materials and elements for sustainability certificates and corresponding funding programmes.“
Tested system components: Building blocks for verifiably sustainable construction projects
The EPD is an internationally recognised product declaration that transparently presents the environmental performance of building products over their entire life cycle. On numerous pages, it provides important information on environmental impacts such as greenhouse gas emissions, energy consumption and resource utilisation. "You could say it is the ecological package insert for our system components, a comprehensive reference work on all relevant sustainability information," explains Izabela Bürkner, Head of Life Cycle Engineering and Climate at GOLDBECK, whose team systematically determines and documents the environmental information and summarises it in the EPD. "For employers, planners and architects, this information and independent verification are of central importance for tracking and designing the sustainability of a construction project. This will also enable buildings to be certified in accordance with DGNB, LEED or BREEAM more quickly and economically in future," Izabela Bürkner continues.
Award at the Schüco stand
Two partners with a common mission
The handover took place in a festive setting at the trade fair stand of Schüco International, one of the leading suppliers of window, door and façade solutions. Because: GOLDBECK and Schüco are not only connected by their home in East Westphalia, but also by a long-standing, trusting partnership. The two family-run companies have been working together in the metal construction unit since 1980. Today, GOLDBECK produces more than 700 window and door units per week using Schüco system technology. Since 2017, the partners have also been developing joint products, including the AWE 80 window system.
Benjamin Kassing, Production Manager of the GOLDBECK metal construction plant: “The AWE 80 is future-orientated and meets the latest standards in terms of material and energy efficiency. For example, by modularising a large proportion of the individual parts and designing them to be leaner, we have achieved resource savings of around 50 percent.“ In addition, GOLDBECK switched to “Schüco Low Carbon Aluminium“ in spring 2024 - saving 2,350 tonnes of CO2 by December 2024. Schüco presented GOLDBECK with the “Carbon Control“ award at Bau in recognition of this and in recognition of the joint development work.