After water, concrete is the most widely used resource in the world. There is almost no construction site today that can do without concrete. It is used, for example, in high-rise buildings, tunnels, bridges and dams. Even the smallest construction projects cannot do without concrete in the foundation components. In terms of climate, concrete is devastating because it is used so extensively worldwide. Otherwise, the CO2 footprint of concrete is on a par with that of steel or brick.

The huge quantities of concrete produced worldwide emit around 2.5 to 3 billion tons of CO2 annually. More precisely, the production of cement, which, in addition to water and gravel, is the essential element of the building material concrete as a binder. Cement is obtained from limestone, which is first crushed and then burned in a rotary kiln at 1450 °C to form clinker. After cooling, it is mixed with gypsum and ground to make cement. 40% of CO2 emissions are caused by heating the rotary kiln, although alternative fuels are already being used and emissions can no longer be significantly reduced. 60% of emissions result from the firing process, during which the CO2 bound in the limestone is released. This proportion cannot be further optimized either.

For years, granulated blast furnace slag from steel production and fly ash from coal combustion have been used as substitutes for limestone. Granulated blast furnace slag could replace up to 70% of the limestone in cement production, but is only available for up to 8% of global cement production. Quite simply, there is not enough of it to meet the high demand. Fly ash is a by-product of coal combustion in power plants and industrial boilers. This type of energy generation is known to be phased out in pursuit of the goal of climate neutrality by 2050.

The solution is to use raw clay, which is available worldwide in large quantities and particularly in the emerging markets and future markets in Africa. It is the most widely available raw material in the world. The cement production process from raw clay is exactly the same as for limestone. However, raw clay only needs to be heated to 800°C in the rotary kiln, compared to 1450°C for limestone. The result is calcined clay clinker, which is then ground into calcined clay.

Green cement consists of 50 percent clinker, 30 percent calcined clay, 15 percent untreated limestone and 5 percent gypsum. Compared to the production of cement purely from limestone, green cement can reduce CO2 emissions by 30 to 40 percent because the rotary kiln only needs to be heated to 800 °C and no CO2 is released when raw clay is burned.

The researchers at Empa in Düdendorf are a few steps further in the laboratory. They are now producing climate-neutral concrete. They add carbon dioxide in solid form to the green concrete in the form of granules. The proportion of carbon dioxide in the granules corresponds to the proportion of carbon dioxide emitted during the entire concrete production process. But that's not all. Empa's ambitious goal is to produce concrete with a negative carbon footprint. To do this, carbon dioxide is filtered out of the air and then bound in methane, which is then split into hydrogen and solid carbon particles by pyrolysis. The carbon powder can then be added to the concrete. The disadvantage is the high energy demand of the process. To extract one cubic meter of carbon dioxide from the air, approximately 2 million cubic meters of air must be filtered.

For the mass-produced product concrete, the question of the scalability of the new achievements remains. It will probably take more than just the widespread production of green concrete to achieve the serial production of concrete with a negative CO2 balance. According to initial estimates, the use of raw clay in cement production is already possible in over 50% of the world's plants. This step would save around 500 million tons of CO2 per year.

Robots walk across the construction sites, take measurements, take photos and provide all the information directly. Visualisation glasses allow us to see the finished project in the shell. The project is visualised in 3D on the computer and in the BIM age the various specialist planners work hand in hand on the same file with the latest information.

Project management software combines many work steps. TAI software channels and connects the tendering, awarding and invoicing process in an informative way. These are all things that work and that can really help users when they are fully developed. In particular, TAI and project management are processes that have been running smoothly with IT support for years.

The construction industry has a great interest in using the possibilities and opportunities of digitisation to bring the existing point and cluster solutions into one platform. The main objectives are to save resources and to increase the quality of planning and construction with the available ones.

How a point solution can become a dynamic technology cluster has been shown by the example of 3D planning, modelling and the applied BIM (Building Information Modelling). Both components are one of the strongest technology links in the planning process. But the links now go further. While 3D planning and BIM have become essential for design management and the planning and tracking of construction processes, newer technologies such as 3D printing, robotics in general, off-site fabrication, laser scanning and so on are expanding this technology cluster.

The area of artificial intelligence and analytics is linked to the previously mentioned cluster. Machine learning is deeply connected to 3D printing. However, AI and analytics offer great opportunities for all current point solutions and clusters. Perhaps AI is also the chance to bring all technologies together.

What is the roadmap? Is it even desirable to combine all processes related to planning and construction into one platform? What does real-time monitoring and control of the construction process have to do with equipment management or customer relationship management? Basically, a lot. Real-time means faster reaction to necessary procurements and faster and more precise reporting to the customer.

As the Construction Technology Industry Map by McKinsey & Company shows, the construction industry is still in a sea of point solutions. What the construction industry needs are platforms or, ideally, the one platform that integrates point and cluster solutions seamlessly into one another and thus quickly provides the user and user groups with an overview of all processes and a secure, channelled communication.

The ideal platform will not be available any time soon. Meanwhile, various providers are competing in the market. Providers that have grown historically and are strong in different sub-areas. The providers and platforms that understand how to think outside the box and familiarise themselves with other specialist areas, incorporate them or at least create meaningful links, will be the most useful and effective.

However, we are still a long way from a solution, but rather from a more comprehensive point solution. Perhaps this is a somewhat pessimistic view, because every new meaningful link and achievement in new technologies makes things easier in our workflow and brings us a little closer to the big picture.

Asbestos is a variety of naturally occurring, fibrous crystallized silicate minerals and has favourable properties for building products, such as high strength, heat and acid resistance and high insulation values. Products such as façade elements, window sills, ventilation shafts, insulation, roof coverings, fillers and adhesives.

The extraction, manufacture and use of asbestos has been banned in Germany since October 31, 1993. There has been a comprehensive ban on #asbestos in the EU since 2005.

Our map shows in green the countries that have signed an agreement to ban the extraction, manufacture and use of asbestos.

Between 1980 and 1990, Finland, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Austria, Sweden and Switzerland were the first countries to introduce the ban. Today, asbestos is banned in over 60 countries.

Between 2011 and 2020, Canada, among others, also joined the ban despite large deposits. In countries such as China, Russia and the USA, there is still no general ban on asbestos. In these countries, as well as in India, Brazil and Kazakhstan, asbestos fibers are still extracted and used industrially in asbestos mines (map: dark marking).

In 2023, around 1.3 million tons were mined in mines that are still officially active today.

Mineral fibers were already being used worldwide 100 years ago. According to estimates, we will still be dealing with it for more than 100 years until the last buildings have been renovated and are asbestos-free.

If you drive through old prefabricated housing estates, you can see that many people are apparently unaware of the asbestos hazard. Crumbling facades and roof structures endanger the residents of the houses and apartments. Renovations are often delayed or not carried out at all. The reason for this is the cost of extensive refurbishment.

Are we on track with the issue of asbestos? Are we aware of the risk? Does more need to be done?

This is shown by the Construction Damage Report for Civil Engineering and #Infrastructure of the VHV insurers. Almost 40,000 claims were examined in the period between 2017 and 2021. The focus on the average costs per claim and year is even more pronounced, with an increase of 31 percent.

Most claims occur in line construction. 57.5 percent of the damage to lines is caused by the use of working machines and 19.7 percent by execution and installation errors. Communication lines are by far the most affected or damaged type of line.

Inaccurate and incomplete site plans were identified as the cause of damage by around 95 percent and imprecise planning information by around 88 percent.

The motivation to contain a further increase in damage repair costs, for example through the introduction of a central line cadastre, is great, especially since the risk of damage occurrence should increase significantly with a focus on digitalisation, the energy and transport transition and the resulting increasing density of the network structure in the future.

In 2022, the share of transactions in certified properties increased by 4.9% year-on-year to a total of 30.6%. In office properties, a peak value of 46.2 % was reached, so that almost every second newly constructed office building is a green building. In the logistics sector, the share rose from 16.5 % (2021) to 27 % (2022).

The demand for sustainable real estate is particularly high among institutional investors, such as insurance companies and pension funds as well as open-ended funds. The focus is on the so-called A-cities Berlin, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt am Main, Hamburg, Cologne, Munich and Stuttgart.

Green buildings are properties in which attention is paid to a maximum reduction of CO2 emissions in the planning, design, construction, operation and also the subsequent deconstruction (reuse of materials). This is assessed in so-called life cycle assessments. Among other things, EPDs (Environmental Product Declarations) for the classification of building products form the basis.

The technical development of green buildings will continue to be dynamic. As already reported, example projects have shown that even simple changes in structural design, away from conventional construction methods, can lead to additional CO2 savings of up to 30%.

With the growing importance of sustainable real estate, the pressure is increasing to create more incentives for this as well, since this savings potential is currently not yet taken into account in the ESG criteria.

For users, the technification of the home does not only mean comforts, such as starting the sauna via app on the way back to home , starting the vacuum robot or simply a fast internet.

No, smart homes can save a lot of energy and money in the long run. The use of smart heating and cooling systems brings energy savings of around 50%.

Understandably, smart homes are becoming increasingly popular because of their benefits and conveniences. In the US, there were approximately 57.4 million households using smart technologies at least once a month in 2022. In Europe, there were around 44 million households in 2022, with a jump to over 97 million households predicted by 2025. In Germany, more than 27.5 million households are expected to be smartly equipped by 2026.

An important driver for this development is the expansion of the fibre-optic network. 8.5 million German households were connected to the fibre optic network in 2021. At the end of 2021, two-thirds of German households had a fibre-optic connection available. And the trend is rising. Supply is increasingly concentrated in rural areas.

Compared to the copper-based network, the fibre-optic network promises 17 times less power consumption.

The advantages of the Smart Home cannot be used carelessly. Caution is advised in the choice of technology. More than 40 percent of smart homes use an end device that is susceptible to cyber attacks, which in the worst case can shut down the entire household.

First of all, clarification of what is meant by construction products: Construction products are building materials, components and installations as well as construction sets that are manufactured to be permanently installed in structural (civil engineering) installations and whose use can have an impact on the requirements for structural installations. Prefabricated structures that are manufactured to be connected to the ground (e.g. prefabricated houses, prefabricated garages and silos) are also considered construction products.

An EPD (Environmental Product Declaration) is a document that describes the environmentally relevant properties of an individual product in the form of neutral and objective data. The aim is to use the data to record the effects of the product on the environment more precisely and thus to provide experts such as architects and engineers as well as owners with a basis for the planning and evaluation of buildings.

EPDs are based on so-called life cycle assessments. These assess the entire life cycle of a product in terms of its environmental impact, from the extraction of raw materials to recycling, disposal or reuse. All processes and by-products associated with the product, such as transport and packaging, are recorded.

In the ecological assessment, the life cycle assessments of buildings, the environmental impacts from the use of a building and the life cycle assessments of the building products used are the decisive factors.

More and more manufacturers of products are turning to EPDs to make their product attractive in the increasingly sustainable and environmentally conscious building sector and to be approved for funded projects in the first place.

The topic is complex and places high demands on planners and construction companies. Not every product that appears environmentally friendly is sustainable in the overall context of planning, site selection and type of use. EPDs help with the necessary data to make the concrete calculations for the individual case.

What does the life cycle assessment of your product look like? Does your product have an EPD? How sustainable and environmentally conscious are you planning?