Site certificate

Within the framework of the project “Zertifizierung von Siedlungen / Quartieren” (engl. Site certificate) the possibility of transferring the Swiss “2000-Watt Site” certificate to Austria was assessed by stakeholders from Austria and Switzerland: in how far can the existing Swiss system “2000-Watt Site” certificate (for newly build areas) as well as ongoing and planned propositions to expand the system to city planning processes and existing areas provide a basis for Austria? Preparatory work regarding the project questions took place during the program „klimaaktiv building and renovation“ of the BMLFUW and within the framework of the program “building of tomorrow/ city of tomorrow” of the BMVIT.

Setting

In Austria, different well established systems (klimaaktiv, ÖGNB) for the evaluation of buildings exist - as well as the e5 quality and certification program is applied in many municipalities and cities. Furthermore a broad range of national and international research activities and programs exist, which focus on the implementation of sustainability standards on individual building and village level. Those are based on knowledge about the insufficiency of exclusively optimizing buildings.

The necessary next step has to be the optimization of building complexes/ villages/ districts including the related resource demand for energy, mobility and infrastructure. This means higher complexity and a wider range of topics, additional actors with different interests, new definition of responsibilities (who ist the “overall planner”, who is the “process designer”), often instruments for integrated planning and obligatory implementation are missing.

Targets and results

The Swiss “2000-Watt Site” certificate is a system for planning, evaluating and ensuring the quality of newly build areas; developed on the basis of the “2000-Watt Gesellschaft”. Thereby the existing building standard (Minergie) and qualitative evaluation are considered. Furthermore is the certification process of the existing “Energiestadt” label for municipalities carried out (“Energiestadt” and the Austrian e5 program match with regards to their requirements and process of the evaluation and certification of municipalities).

The results of the exploration project provide a basis for defining the time horizon to find a target value definition that can be compared to the Swiss one and whether the existing Austrian evaluations systems will be used or what supplements are needed. Included is a written guideline for further processing of the requirement level and target values for Austria (what needs to be researched and decided by whom).

Abbildung 1: Switzerland – Austria: Analogies and challenges. Source: ÖGUT

Project leaders

• ÖGUT - Österreichischen Gesellschaft für Umwelt und Technik
• Salzburger Institut für Raumplanung SIR

Project partners

• Intep – Integrale Planung GmbH, Schweiz
• Enco-AG, Energiestadt Schweiz