03/19/2025

ifeu-Podcast: „To built or not to built – how grey emissions are fuelling the climate“

Around 10 % of German climate emissions are caused by building materials. Civil engineer Florian Maiwald explains how these greenhouse gases can be reduced in the new podcast episode of ‘ifeu Update’.

Grey emissions, also known as embodied carbon emissions (ECE) in a scientific context, are harmful greenhouse gases that are produced over the entire life cycle of building materials. For example, when cement is produced, when materials are transported to the construction site, during construction itself, when buildings are demolished and when old building materials are disposed of. It is estimated that ECE is responsible for around 10 % of Germany's annual climate emissions.

The exact amount of emissions produced has hardly been analysed to date. The reason: for a long time, the majority of greenhouse gases were produced during the operation of buildings. In the context of buildings being supplied with heat with increasingly low greenhouse gas emissions thanks to better insulation and more efficient heat generation, for example through heat pumps, the consideration of emissions from the life cycle of building materials is now becoming increasingly important. In other words, grey emissions are much more important today than they used to be. 

How big the ECE problem actually is and how it can be tackled is the topic of the latest #ifeuUpdate podcast. Here, civil engineer Florian Maiwald explains to science journalist Nora Lessing how ECE arises and what Germany can do to reduce it. His conclusion: ‘We need a potpourri of many different solutions for the construction sector and a structured, gradual introduction of limit values.’ In order to curb ECE, for example, building demolition and new construction would have to be moderately curbed and existing buildings better utilised.

You can listen to and subscribe to ‘ifeu Update - the podcast from environmental research’ 

via the ifeu website, Spotify, Google- und Apple Podcasts as well as on YouTube.

Produziert wird der Podcast von der Wissenschaftsjournalistin Nora Lessing für die Berliner Agentur Ahnen & Enkel, die sich auf Umwelt- und Energiethemen spezialisiert hat.

Background: 

Project and study: „Reduktion und Regulierung von Embodied-Carbon-Emissionen im deutschen Gebäudesektor“

Download press release (in German)