9 January 2015, 00:00
Institut Bauen und Umwelt (IBU) will offer an interface connecting its Environmental Product Declaration’s database system to the new ÖKOBAUDAT of BBSR (Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development) as of the end of 2014. Construction product manufacturers who are members at IBU can then upload their Life Cycle Assessment product information free of charge. Planers, architects and auditors who are assessing buildings will have unconditional access to sustainability-relevant product information.
Energy and resource efficiency, as well as sustainability, are important aspects in the construction industry. Furthermore, ecological and health aspects increasingly gain importance when assessing a building. Every building is seen as “carrying an ecological rucksack“ whose size is determined by the construction materials used. If construction materials show serious environmental impacts the life cycle assessment results will be negative. Some aspects are for example, global warming, depletion potential of the stratospheric ozone layer, acidification of land and water, smog and eutrophication. Energy consumption and also the built-in construction materials and the recycling/waste potential are taken into consideration in theLife Cycle Assessment of a building. Comprehensive information about a building, including its complete life cycle, helps to ecologically optimize, i.e., plan to construct a building.
The construction material database ÖKOBAUDAT is operated by The Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMBU) with the support of the Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning (BBR) and provides the necessary basic data for life cycle assessment. Since 1st September 2014 the newly structured construction material database ÖKOBAUDAT can be accessed underwww.oekobaudat.de. It is the first database working according to the European standard DIN EN 15804 and it is very user-friendly, offering additional explanations and comments, search and filter functions, as well as a single view mode for specific data sets. Via interfaces the life cycle assessment data is directly submitted to ÖKOBAUDAT. As from the end 2014 this will also be possible for Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), verified by IBU. Manufacturers can then edit their existing EPD data in the IBU database at https://epd-online.com with a few clicks and submit their data to ÖKOBAUDAT via the new xml interface. IBU office then forwards the data to BBSR and it is published in ÖKOBAUDAT. From then on, regular IBU members will have the possibility to easily upload their products and the relevant life cycle assessment data from their EPDs to the construction material database at no extra charge. The data has to be edited according to the quality requirements of ÖKOBAUDAT (“Guidelines for uploading life cycle assessment data into ÖKOBAUDAT“)
IBU is a German programme operator issuing EPDs for construction materials. Throughout Germany it is the only organisation declaring construction materials according to the European standard DIN EN 15804. Manufacturers create an EPD according to life cycles assessment data, it is verified by independent third parties and then published by IBU. EPDs create transparency regarding construction materials - factual, neutral, unbiased. In order to create EPDs, https://epd-online.com is an easy-to-use, web based database system provided by IBU. The new interface to online ÖKOBAUDAT enables manufacturers to immediately upload existing data of EPDs through IBU. Then this data can be made accessible at life cycles assessment systems for buildings at BNB or DGNB.
Conclusions & Prospects
BMUB/BBSR have developed ÖKOBAUDAT, which is an important step towards establishing Environmental Product Declarations as a tool to assess environmental impacts of construction materials in the life cycle of a building, Europe-wide.
BBSR is planning to develop a uniform European Life Cycle Assessment. This will include European Environmental Product Declaration in different languages, as well as links with life cycle assessment data from different background databases (e.g. GaBi, ecoinvent).
On completion of the interface, IBU will offer an introductory webinar in order to explain the use and function of the new interface to current and potential users.
Source: Institut Bauen und Umwelt e.V.