"Thou shalt not concrete"
16.05.2022
Architecture critic and columnist Benedikt Loderer sets out ten commandments for the new architecture and explains why concrete should be dispensed with today. Find out here why we share Mr. Loderer's opinion.
The whole architecture column by Benedikt Loderer can be found in theBernese newspaperand other newspapers. Here we show why we agree so much with Benedikt Loderer's 3rd commandment. steel and concrete are the dominant Concrete are the dominant building materials - and they are very CO₂-intensive. Cement plants in Switzerland alone are responsible for a good 6 percent of national CO₂ emissions. This makes the construction industry as a whole a climate polluter. The concrete industry has recognized the problem and is is working to reduce the proportion of conventional clinker in cement. However, the options for doing so are limited: There always remain the process emissions that are generated when limestone is burned. Only complex and expensive "carbon capture" methods, in which the CO₂ is to be captured directly at the high chimney, can in future reduce CO₂ emissions from cement production.
Over the past 20 years, CO₂ emissions at Swiss cement plants have been from Swiss cement plants have remained at a consistently high level of just over 2.5 million tonnes of CO₂ per year. million tonnes of CO₂ annually.
The situation is quite different the situation is quite different with timber construction: Thanks to photosynthesis, a tree stores CO₂ during its growth. tree stores up to twenty tons of CO₂ in its branches, trunk and root system during growth. This is roughly equivalent to the CO₂ emissions of 150,000 car kilometers. The Swiss forest thus relieves our air by ten million tons of CO₂ every year. The question is whether we can also store this CO₂ in the long term. Because: When a tree burns or When a tree burns or rots, the same amount is released. The goal is, to store the carbon beyond the life cycle of a tree. Exactly Timbatec has been committed to this for over twenty years. Used in the structures of buildings, the carbon remains bound in the wood used. Thus wooden buildings make an important contribution to climate protection as CO₂ stores, One cubic meter of timber stores around one ton of CO₂. This carbon store is recognized today.
Indirect counter-proposal to the
Glacier Initiative in the National Council
Last year, voters narrowly rejected the CO₂ law. Since then, solutions have been sought at all political levels to curb global warming.
can be curbed. At the beginning of the month, the Federal Council adopted the revised
CO₂ Ordinance at the beginning of the month. It prevents a regulatory gap until the
the entry into force of the completely revised CO₂ law from 2025.
climate protection projects in which CO₂ is permanently captured in biological or
geological reservoirs. This means that the sink capacity of the
value of the forest can now be put to good use. Read more onForest Switzerland.
At the end of April, the National Council's Environment Committee came out clearly in favor of an indirect counterproposal to the Glacier Initiative. The goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 is to become law, specified by interim targets and sectoral benchmarks. With This indirect counter-proposal to the Glacier Initiative is intended to wants to anchor a strong climate target in Swiss law as quickly as possible. The buildings and transport sectors are to emit CO₂ emissions by 2050, and industry is to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2050. The only way to achieve this ambitious ambitious goal is to do away with steel, concrete and brick in the future. in the future.