Bio-based materials – Europe-wide updates on policy and tools
In November 2021, the spotlight will be on Glasgow for the 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP26). Will the world’s leaders be able to accelerate their efforts we so urgently need to achieve the climate targets agreed upon in Paris in 2015?
The role of the construction industry in contributing to climate change must not be underestimated, with the building and construction sector contributing 38% (9.95 Gt CO2) of global CO2 emissions in 2019.[1] In order to leverage the sector’s huge carbon reduction potential, we must go further than just improving the operational energy efficiency of buildings and focus on reducing the environmental impacts of building materials, from extraction and manufacture through to end-of-life.
Emissions from the production of building materials are largely driven by cement and steel manufacturing, and their growth in use is a major driver of building related embodied carbon emissions.1 However, there are readily available alternatives, such as bio-based materials, which not only have lower embodied carbon but capture carbon from the atmosphere during their growth.
This carbon is stored or ‘sequestered’ over the life or the product and/or the lifetime of the building. The amount of stored carbon is relatively easy to calculate but the current life cycle analysis (LCA) methodology under EN 15804+A2 decrees that the sequestered carbon number should be stated separately to the embodied carbon. LCA assumes that this stored carbon is then lost back to the atmosphere at end of life when the material is generally burnt or landfilled.
However, if we are to meet the world’s climate goals and limit global warming to well below 2C, we must concentrate on reducing CO2 emissions NOW, rather than in 10-30 years or at the end of a building’s lifecycle. This temporary storage of carbon within a product is an effective and ‘free’ method for capturing carbon from the atmosphere and so should be appropriately recognised by tool providers and legislators.
Please join natureplus and its partners for the opening symposium of a week-long event series, with industry experts and policy makers from throughout Europe discussing how tools and legislation are evolving to recognise sequestration, and how policy is being enacted to encourage the uptake of more bio-based materials.
[1] UN climate programme report: “2020 Global Status Report for Buildings and Construction – Towards a zero-emissions, efficient and resilient buildings and construction sector”
Programme
Times are shown in Central European Summer Time (CEST)
14.00 (13.00 BST) – Keynote
- Bauhaus der Erde – Prof. Dr. Jürgen P. Kropp (Strategic Advisor and Partner / Head of Urban Transformations at Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research) and Marc Weissberger (Co-founder and Partner / Former Managing Director and CFO of Veolia Germany and EU’s climate innovation network Climate-KIC)
14.30 (13.30 BST) – Tools
- Dr. Andrew Norton, Director, Renuables – Sequestration and carbon capture and storage in bio-based materials. How does it work and how do we calculate it? What databases are available?
- Elodie Macé, Environmental Design Engineer, ARTELIA Sustainable Buildings – Dynamic LCA: How France addresses both operational and embodied carbon and emissions with the environmental regulations “RE2020” for buildings by introducing time into LCA.
- Simone Skalicki, Kommunalkredit Public Consulting GmbH, Climate & Environment – New buildings in timber construction. A grant from the Austrian Forest Fund.
15.30 (14.30 BST) – Policy
- Matti Kuittinen, Senior Specialist, Ministry of the Environment, Finland and Professor of resource-efficient construction, Aalto University – Policy in Finland/ carbon footprint and carbon handprint/possible policy levers
- Dorette Corbey and Roel Bol, Federatie Bio-economie Nederland – Supporting Bio-Based Materials with Policy
- Magali Deproost, Walloon Public Service, Department Sustainable Development – Tools, projects, policy and financial support for the development of a value chain for regional biobased building materials in Wallonia
16.30 (15.30 BST) – Materials
- Rainer Blum, Head of Application Technology, GUTEX – Woodfibre insulation – a sustainable building material with high carbon storage potential
- Dagmar Fritz-Kramer, Director, Baufritz – Material solutions to build climate protection
16.45 (15.45 BST) – Discussion & Networking
17.00 (14.00 BST) – Close
Registration
- 30 EUR for members of ASBP and natureplus, students*
- 45 EUR for members of natureplus partner organisations & natureplus clients
- 60 EUR Standard
Special offer! You can book a discounted “3 for 2” ticket for 3 online events as part of natureplus Europe Event Series 2021 which includes our Future Footprints 2021 event on 14th October and an event by IBO – “Carbon neutral by 2050 – the roadmap of the Austrian Cement Industry” on 21st October.