DGNB and the German market: where an EPD is close to mandatory

DGNB is the certification system developed by the German Sustainable Building Council, and it differs from the others in one clear respect: life cycle assessment is not an optional credit but the core of the system. Every building seeking certification undergoes a building LCA.

ÖKOBAUDAT: the database requirement

In German building LCA practice the data source is not open. ÖKOBAUDAT is the EN 15804-compliant construction product database maintained by the German federal building ministry, and DGNB calculations rest on it. If a product has no ÖKOBAUDAT entry, it is represented in the calculation by a generic record.

That has a concrete consequence for exporters: getting your product into ÖKOBAUDAT is the precondition for being represented by name in German projects. A product represented by a generic record enters the calculation at an average value, whatever its actual performance.

IBU and choosing a program operator

IBU (Institut Bauen und Umwelt) is Germany's established EPD program operator and sits centrally in the data flow into ÖKOBAUDAT. Its verification process is longer and more rigorous than other operators'; in return its recognition in the German market is the highest.

• If Germany is the target market, operator choice converges on IBU in practice
• Plan a six to ten week verification calendar
• Format and disclaimer rules are strict; template alignment has to be set up from the start
• The ÖKOBAUDAT entry is a separate step and does not happen automatically on publication
• The dataset is submitted in a machine-readable format

The system also covers life cycle cost

Another distinguishing feature of DGNB is that it weights the economic dimension equally with the environmental one. A life cycle cost calculation is a mandatory component of the certificate, which makes running environmental and economic assessment on one model a practical necessity.