Concrete Perspectives July – September 2021
1. CONCRETE NEWS
FEBE Elements Awards 2021
The Belgian Precast Concrete Federation awards each year the FEBE Elements Awards for the most outstanding precast concrete projects of the past year from Belgium. This year again, many inspiring, innovative, inventive and sustainable projects have been introduced in five categories: Precast in Buildings, Precast in Structures, Precast in Landscape, Precast in Infrastructure and Outstanding Precast. Three projects will be nominated in each category and one of them will be designated the winner on November 25 in Brussels during the award ceremony.
Discover the nominated projects here.
White paper: ‘Construction Products Key Environmental Indicators’
Cobuilder has recently released its white paper to facilitate the development of sustainability strategies and policies that are based on Environmental Product Declarations (EPD). It offers an overview of different sustainability initiatives such as the European Green Deal, Level(s), Green Public Procurement, and explains how they relate to the assessment of products’ environmental performance. The study aims to provide value to the readers by compiling a set of key environmental parameters for construction products by cross-referencing the listed influential initiatives and standards. The main goal is to make credible environmental information about construction products easy to understand so that more construction stakeholders could benefit from it and correctly assess the impact of their construction products. Download the white paper here.
Level(s) website update – new tools
Visit the new Level(s) website to understand how Level(s) works and to get the latest information on the sustainable construction initiative, including factsheets, interviews, links with building certification systems, and policy instruments, etc. The new section ‘Let’s meet Level(s)’ is a learning hub that helps to identify how to get started with Level(s). An e-learning package and calculator tool will also be added to the website towards the end of 2021 to understand how to apply Level(s) in practice. Level(s) offers an extensively tested system for measuring and supporting improvements, from design to end of life. It can be applied to residential buildings or offices.
2. BIBM NEWS
Public consultation and feedback
Climate change – restoring sustainable carbon cycles
The initiative aims to support the development of sustainable carbon removal solutions. It will propose an action plan to promote carbon farming and develop a regulatory framework for the certification of carbon removal.
Feedback deadline: 7 October
Climate change – updating the EU emissions trading system (ETS)
To ensure the EU is having a neutral impact on climate change by 2050, the Commission proposed raising its 2030 target for greenhouse gas emission reductions to at least 55% of 1990 levels. The Commission will review all relevant EU policies against this target, including the emissions trading system (ETS), and propose extending the ETS to new sectors of the economy.
Feedback deadline: 8 November
EU energy efficiency directive (EED) – evaluation and review
Under the European Green Deal, the Commission has committed to stronger action on climate change. It aims to assess how the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions could responsibly be reduced by at least 50% to 55% by 2030.
As the efficient use of energy is key to achieving such a target, the review aims to provide insights into how the EED could be revised to: achieve a higher level of greenhouse gas reduction by 2030 and contribute to other European Green Deal initiative.
Feedback deadline: 11 November
BIBM Congress 2021, 14 – 16 November – only two months to go!
Registrations for both, stands and tickets, can be made as usual. We are already looking forward to welcoming you in Copenhagen at the end of 2021 and to enjoy networking and future driven lessons!
We confide in your help to raise awareness within your clients and stakeholders, through organising ‘national’ visits, providing possible exhibitors and sharing the available promotional materials.
REGISTRATION DEADLINES/UPDATES:
- BIBM Congress is rescheduled to November 14 – 16, 2021
- Congress Delegate online registration and price list here
- Registration exhibitors here
- Download the program here
- The BIBM Congress 2021’ official slogan: ‘The Future of European Construction – Precast Excellence in Nordic Countries’
- LinkedIn and Twitter BIBM Congress hashtag: #BIBMCongress2021 (please follow the hashtag to keep up with related images and posts)
- Learn more about the Speakers and Exhibitors on the Building Congress Forum LinkedIn page here
- Follow the YouTube channel #TalkConcrete here
- Abstract submission: Speakers are invited to send 1 to 2 pages summary of their presentation to Ms. Magdalena Herbik (mh@bibm.eu) until 28 September, 2021
- Denmark revoked all restrictions since September 10th, 2021, and TIVOLI Congress Center, BIBM and The Building Congress Forum are looking forward to welcome you in Copenhagen!
- Travelling for leisure or business to Denmark is already permitted, if vaccinated even without restrictions (see links for details):
3. BIBM AGENDA
| SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER | NOVEMBER |
| 27: ECP TF Health, Environment and Hygiene Confcall | 1: CEN/TC 350/SC 1 Confcall | 14-16: BIBM BIBM Congress 2021 Copenhagen |
| 27: ECP HEH WG Microplastics Confcall | 7: BIBM Directors’ meeting Confcall | 25: CEN/TC 350 Confcall |
| 29: CEN/TC 229/WG 1 Confcall | 14: CEN/TC 350/WG 3 Confcall | 29: BIBM Technical Commission Confcall |
| 30: CEN/TC 350/SC 1 Confcall | 22: The Concrete Initiative Confcall |
4. WEBINARS / ONLINE EVENTS
5. BIBM PARTNERS NEWS
Construction 2050 – Opportunities for new talent
The second public event organised by the Construction 2050 Alliance, which brought together 200 participants, showed that construction can offer many opportunities to new talent. The discussions proved that, in light of the EU Green Deal and of the Recovery and Resilience plans, construction can restore and create better and safer jobs. Fulvia Raffaelli (DG GROW) shared updates on the EC activity on skills and the future of the sector. The Alliance is looking forward to further collaborating to improve the attractiveness of construction.
Read the press release here.
GCCA launches ‘Concrete Action for Climate’
On 6 July, the Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA) and World Economic Forum launched ‘Concrete Action for Climate’ (CAC), a collaborative platform that will help drive the industry’s journey to carbon neutral concrete by 2050 as part of the Mission Possible Partnership. CAC will bring industry, built environment, civil society, governments, and investors to coordinate global climate actions towards 2050 net-zero targets.
If you are interested in learning more about the CAC’s work, please visit the following website here or email at concrete@missionpossiblepartnership.org.
CEMBUREAU event – Cementing Europe’s Future: Action Through Policy
CEMBUREAU, the European Cement Association, will hold its 2021 summit – Cementing Europe’s Future: Action Through Policy – on 12 October, from 09.00 to 13.00 (Registration). Following the success of their first annual conference in 2020 – Cementing Europe’s Future: Building the Green Deal – this event aims to highlight the key role the cement industry has to play towards Europe’s 2050 ambitions and how this can be accelerated through policy. The first session: ‘A Cement Industry “Fit for 55%”?’ will focus on the EC legislative climate package. The second: ‘A Carbon Neutral Built Environment & the Role of Concrete’, will focus on the EU’s exciting agenda to decarbonise European buildings. The summit will feature a keynote speech from Frans Timmermans, Executive Vice President of the European Green Deal.
6. LIVE FROM THE EUROPEAN UNION
EC launches the Fit for 55% Package
The European Commission has launched its ‘Fit for 55%’ measures that will support Europe’s climate policy framework and put the EU on track for a 55% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030, and net-zero emissions by 2050. The package is comprised of thirteen proposals; eight of them are revisions to existing laws and five are new proposals. Among them:
- a revision of the EU emissions trading system (EU ETS), including a separate emission trading system for road transport and buildings;
- a revision of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD);
- a revision of the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED);
- a revision of the regulation on the inclusion of greenhouse gas emissions and removals from land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) and a new EU Forest Strategy;
- a carbon border adjustment mechanism.
The interconnected proposals cover areas of climate, land use, energy, transport and taxation to bring them into line with the targets agreed in the European Climate Law.
Read the press release here (14/07/21).
EC adopts New EU Forest Strategy for 2030
The EU Forest Strategy sets a vision and concrete actions to improve the quantity and quality of EU forests and strengthen their protection, restoration and resilience. It aims to adapt Europe’s forests to the new conditions, weather extremes and high uncertainty brought about by climate change, for instance, by planting 3 billion additional trees by 2030.
The European Commission outlined two key objectives:
• Protection, restoration, and sustainable management of forests;
• Ensuring the multifunctionality of EU forests.
Read the press release here (16/07/21).
Call for Proposals: Affordable Housing Initiative
The call for proposals (deadline: 30 October, 2021) seeks to provide support, capacity building and networking for local industrial partnerships, with the ambition to pilot 100 lighthouse renovation districts under the Affordable Housing Initiative – a cornerstone of the EC’s Renovation Wave Strategy.
The call will set up one European Affordable Housing Consortium to support SMEs, including social enterprises, to collaborate with public authorities and (social) housing providers. The idea is to implement renovation projects targeting social and affordable housing, to upskill and reskill and integrate the latest digital, environmental and social innovative solutions targeting social and affordable housing and district renovation, and to identify technology needs and developments.
Communication on the New European Bauhaus
On 15 September the EC adopted a Communication on the New European Bauhaus (NEB), setting out core principles, several policy actions and funding possibilities to drive the initiative forward, inspired by the views of thousands of EU stakeholders who joined the co-design of the NEB from January to June 2021. For thematic axes will now guide its implementation: reconnecting with nature, regaining a sense of belonging, prioritising the places and people that need it most and fostering long term, life cycle thinking in the industrial ecosystem.
For the funding, there will be about €85 million from EU programmes dedicated to NEB projects in 2021 – 2022.
The Communication also sets out the plan to organise a Festival and to establish a New European Bauhaus Lab: a ‘think and do tank’ to co-create, prototype and test new tools, solutions and policy recommendations.
7. OUTSTANDING PRECAST CONCRETE PROJECTS
‘Norra Tornen’ in Stockholm, Sweden
Tornen (Northern Towers) is Stockholm’s inner city’s tallest residential building and consists of two towers, Helix and Innovationen. Swedish Attacus Stomsystem (formerly SCF Betongelement) was hired for the production of the colored façade elements, and they developed a sandwich construction with a core of concrete for walls and floor slabs. Norra Tornen’s design emerges as the expression of a modular system of precast exposed concrete elements.
More information: https://www.oma.com/projects/norra-tornen
[Source: BFT International]
© Daniel Hertzell