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Joining forces to promote Green Building

To achieve great­er sus­tain­ab­il­ity in con­struc­tion, the efforts of all stake­hold­ers in this pro­cess must be com­bined. For many types of build­ing products today, the EMICODE® label stands for the low­est pos­sible emis­sions and thus sup­ports hol­ist­ic approaches to sus­tain­ab­il­ity on a nation­al and inter­na­tion­al scale.

The strive for sus­tain­ab­il­ity is also one of the key con­cerns in the con­struc­tion sec­tor. How­ever, not every play­er needs to rein­vent the wheel. The GEV, the Ger­man Asso­ci­ation for the Con­trol of Emis­sions in Products for Floor­ing Install­a­tion, Adhes­ives and Build­ing Mater­i­als, there­fore clearly focuses its sus­tain­ab­il­ity efforts on the assess­ment and clas­si­fic­a­tion of build­ing mater­i­als with regard to their emis­sions, in par­tic­u­lar volat­ile organ­ic com­pounds (VOCs). By con­trast, the lead­ing cer­ti­fic­a­tion sys­tem in Ger­many, which is that of the DGNB (Ger­man Sus­tain­able Build­ing Coun­cil), takes a more hol­ist­ic approach to assess­ment and cer­ti­fic­a­tion. This not only con­siders eco­lo­gic­al but also eco­nom­ic and social aspects through­out a building’s entire life cycle.

Thanks to the GEV’s spe­cial­iz­a­tion, the EMICODE® and the DGNB com­ple­ment each oth­er very well in their pro­gress towards more sus­tain­able con­struc­tion. Two new online bro­chures, each of them com­pris­ing 8 pages, explain the syn­er­gies arising from this col­lab­or­a­tion. They are avail­able for down­load from the GEV under the titles “The Role of the EMICODE® in Green Build­ing Cer­ti­fic­a­tion Sys­tems” and “How DGNB and EMICODE® join forces to pro­mote Green Build­ing”. The DGNB sys­tem dir­ectly refers to the EMICODE® label as proof of com­pli­ance with its VOC emis­sion require­ments. These are for­mu­lated under DGNB cri­terion ENV1.2 “Loc­al Envir­on­ment­al Impact” with the goal of avoid­ing all haz­ard­ous or harm­ful build­ing mater­i­als and repla­cing them with products that pro­mote a healthy indoor cli­mate.

Inter­na­tion­ally, too, the EMICODE® label has become an import­ant com­pon­ent of sus­tain­ab­il­ity assess­ment. Foun­ded in 1990, the BREEAM sys­tem is the most suc­cess­ful build­ing cer­ti­fic­a­tion sys­tem world­wide and can boast of more than 600,000 cer­ti­fied pro­jects. It recog­nizes the EMICODE® as an “approved altern­at­ive scheme” that can be used without restric­tion as proof of com­pli­ance with the BREEAM cri­ter­ia for indoor air qual­ity. In the LEED cer­ti­fic­a­tion sys­tem, developed by the U.S. Green Build­ing Coun­cil and backed by expert­ise from 100,000 cer­ti­fied pro­jects, EMICODE®-cer­ti­fied build­ing products are con­sidered to be “low-emit­t­ing mater­i­als” that are suit­able for meet­ing LEED emis­sion require­ments. How­ever, this “altern­at­ive com­pli­ance path” is only per­mit­ted for pro­jects out­side the United States.

The EMICODE® provides scientifically validated proof of emissions

The three sys­tems spe­cify con­crete require­ments for the com­pon­ents and mater­i­als used in the con­struc­tion of build­ings. For the product group “Install­a­tion mater­i­als and seal­ants”, all three sys­tems focus on the con­tri­bu­tion of these mater­i­als to indoor air qual­ity. On the one hand, this involves veri­fy­ing the emis­sion of volat­ile organ­ic com­pounds (VOCs) from indi­vidu­al build­ing mater­i­als. On the oth­er hand, the focus is on meas­ur­ing indoor air qual­ity after com­ple­tion of the build­ing. By using stand­ard­ized test meth­ods, the EMICODE® provides object­ive, trans­par­ent and veri­fi­able proof that a product has a low con­tent of harm­ful pol­lut­ants. The emis­sion tests are car­ried out in test cham­bers by inde­pend­ent, accred­ited test­ing insti­tutes. Oth­er sus­tain­ab­il­ity cri­ter­ia, such as the glob­al warm­ing poten­tial (GWP), are giv­en little or no weight in build­ing cer­ti­fic­a­tions when it comes to install­a­tion mater­i­als, as these products account for only a very small por­tion of the total build­ing.

While “sus­tain­ab­il­ity” has mean­while become a buzzword, the term is not always clearly defined. In the well-estab­l­ished “three-pil­lar mod­el”, the term encom­passes not only envir­on­ment­al but also eco­nom­ic and social aspects. This makes sus­tain­ab­il­ity a chal­len­ging and com­plex top­ic. The most import­ant eco­lo­gic­al goals are con­serving nat­ur­al resources, avoid­ing pol­lut­ants and haz­ard­ous sub­stances (espe­cially indoors), redu­cing the car­bon foot­print, and pro­tect­ing biod­iversity. Eco­nom­ic­ally, the primary goal is to design build­ings in a way that enables their long-term, energy-effi­­cient and flex­ible use. The social goal is to safe­guard the health and well-being of both con­struc­tion work­ers and crafts­men and of the build­ings’ future res­id­ents – regard­less of wheth­er the spaces are meant for work or res­id­en­tial use. This includes, for instance, good indoor air qual­ity and effect­ive heat pro­tec­tion.

Con­clu­sion: Through the col­lab­or­a­tion of the EMICODE® with hol­ist­ic build­ing cer­ti­fic­a­tion sys­tems such as the DGNB’s, the GEV makes an import­ant con­tri­bu­tion to great­er sus­tain­ab­il­ity in con­struc­tion. Being a soph­ist­ic­ated, reli­able and recog­nized cer­ti­fic­a­tion sys­tem for build­ing products, the EMICODE® facil­it­ates the work of archi­tects, plan­ners and con­tract­ors when select­ing products and provid­ing doc­u­ment­a­tion for build­ings seek­ing LEED, BREEAM or DGNB cer­ti­fic­a­tion. While the DGNB handles the stra­tegic and hol­ist­ic assess­ment of sus­tain­ab­il­ity and indoor air qual­ity, the EMICODE® sup­plies the spe­cif­ic tools needed to provide meas­ur­able proof of the low-emis­­sion qual­ity of build­ing products.

The two new bro­chures on these top­ics can be down­loaded free of charge from the GEV:

https://www.emicode.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Broschuere-DGNB-EMICODE-DE.pdf

https://www.emicode.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Broschuere-EMICODE-und-Gebaeudezertifizierung-final.pdf

 

Photo: GEV

The bro­chure “How DGNB and EMICODE® join forces to pro­mote Green Build­ing” (left) explains how the DGNB handles the stra­tegic and hol­ist­ic assess­ment of sus­tain­ab­il­ity and indoor air qual­ity, while the EMICODE® focuses on provid­ing meas­ur­able proof that build­ing products are free of harm­ful sub­stances.

The bro­chure “The Role of the EMICODE® in Green Build­ing Cer­ti­fic­a­tion Sys­tems” (right) describes the impact of the EMICODE® in the con­text of nation­al and inter­na­tion­al build­ing cer­ti­fic­a­tion sys­tems. It also demon­strates how this reli­able and recog­nized cer­ti­fic­a­tion sys­tem facil­it­ates the work of archi­tects, plan­ners and con­tract­ors in select­ing products and provid­ing doc­u­ment­a­tion.

Do You Have Questions?

If you have any ques­tions on cer­tain top­ics or want to con­tact us for anoth­er reas­on,
please con­tact us by phone or email.

Phone: +49 (0)211 843 449 – 01

info@emicode.com

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2 August 2026