Milestone at BAU Event: 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.”
Certified system elements: Building blocks for demonstrably sustainable construction projects
The EPD is an internationally recognised product declaration that transparently presents the environmental performance of construction products throughout their entire lifecycle. On numerous pages, it provides crucial information on environmental impacts such as greenhouse gas emissions, energy consumption, and resource usage. "They are, so to speak, the ecological package insert for our system elements, a comprehensive reference work on all relevant sustainability information," explains Izabela Bürkner, Head of Life Cycle Engineering and Climate at GOLDBECK, whose team systematically collects and documents the environmental data and compiles it in the EPD. "For building owners, planners, and architects, this information and the independent verification are essential for tracking and shaping the sustainability of a construction project. Moreover, building certifications according to DGNB, LEED, or BREEAM can be implemented more quickly and economically in the future," adds Izabela Bürkner.
Award Ceremony at the Schüco Exhibition Stand
Two Partners with a Common Mission
The presentation took place in a festive setting at the stand of Schüco International, one of the leading providers of window, door, and facade solutions. GOLDBECK and Schüco are united not only by their roots in East Westphalia but also by a long-standing, trusted partnership. Since 1980, the two family businesses have collaborated in the field of metal construction. Today, GOLDBECK produces over 700 window and door elements per week using Schüco system technology. Since 2017, the partners have also developed joint products, including the AWE 80 window system.
Benjamin Kassing, Production Director of GOLDBECK’s metal construction plant: "The AWE 80 is forward-looking and meets the latest standards in terms of material and energy efficiency. By modularising and designing a large portion of the individual parts more slimly, we achieved a resource saving of around 50 percent." Additionally, in spring 2024, GOLDBECK switched to "Schüco Low Carbon Aluminium" - enabling savings of 2,350 tonnes of CO2 by December 2024. For this, and in recognition of their joint development efforts, Schüco presented GOLDBECK with the "Carbon Control" award at the Bau exhibition.