Blue Angel
The Blue Angel is a German Federal Government ecolabel awarded to environmentally friendly products and services. The award criteria are defined by the Federal Environment Agency. It takes into account functional, environmental and health criteria.
EMICODE®
EMICODE® is a label and test mark issued by GEV, the “Association for Emission-controlled Installation Materials e.V”. In order to qualify for the label, products must be proven to be low-emission (EC2) or very low-emission (EC1, EC1 Plus).
Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)
The FSC sets out standards for the certification of wood and wood products from sustainably managed forests. The implementation of the FSC standards is regularly audited by independent certification companies. The Chain of Custody Certification (CoC Certification) ensures that all production stages and process steps, from the forestry operations to the final processing steps, are certified to FSC standards.
Life Cycle Analysis
A life cycle analysis is essentially a comprehensive analysis of energy and material flows as well as environmental impacts from a product’s manufacture to its disposal with the aid of a life cycle assessment (LCA). More generally, these analyses also take into account a product's effects on the economy and society, in addition to its effects on the environment.
Life cycle costing (LCC)
Life cycle costing is a comprehensive assessment and analysis of costs over the entire life cycle. The German LCC systems establish investment costs and selected utilisation costs, and then summarises and evaluate the them using the present value method. At present, they do not take into account the disposal costs associated with the removal of building components and dismantling a building at the end of its useful life, which is partly due to the high level of uncertainty regarding future disposal routes.
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)
Life cycle assessments are a means to determine and evaluate processes and products’ effects on the global environment. Life cycle assessments can cover the entirety of a life cycle as well as selected life cycle phases. The assessment systems used and recognised in Germany for evaluating a building’s contribution to sustainable development already include key requirements, data specifications, calculation rules and assessment standards.
Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC)
The PEFC constitutes an international framework for recognising national certification systems and initiatives. It involves documenting the sustainability of forest management at regional level and the award of a PEFC certificate to individual companies as a means to demonstrate their commitment to fulfilling the certification's objectives. The implementation of the associated measures is reviewed annually on a random basis.
Primary energy demand, non-renewable (PEne)
Under this system, the energy required to manufacture products, perform processes and/or operate buildings is calculated along the entire chain of that energy's extraction from its primary environmental sources and presented as a “Primary energy, non-renewable” figure. This figure then acts as an indicator for natural resource consumption. The demand calculation for non-renewable primary energy covers fossil fuels; energy from renewable sources is shown as “Primary energy, renewable”.
Greenhouse gasses (GHG)
Greenhouse gases are gases that contribute to the greenhouse effect, i.e. global warming. In addition to the most well-known greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide (CO2), there are also a number other important greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide. Greenhouse gas emissions can be summarised and evaluated as global warming potential (GWP) and expressed as carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e). Both of these variables are used as indicators for assessing a product’s impact on the global environment.
