„When it comes to life cycle assessments, we are still in the Stone Age“

The pipe rehabilitation company Swietelsky-Faber is committed on various levels in the area of sustainability and, in doing so, takes on a pioneering role in part. B_I umweltbau asked the managing director, Jörg Brunecker, who comments in the interview on the EU directive CSRD, on specific sustainability measures of the company, and on social responsibility as well as on the consideration of sustainability aspects in the procurement process.

B_I environmental construction: Mr. Brunecker, what does sustainability mean to you and your company?

Jörg Brunecker: Well, it is certainly not sustainable when climate activists block our infrastructure. Although, as a family man, I have a limited understanding for activism, as a municipal water management specialist I prefer to classify the topic of sustainability in rational/technical terms. And on these levels, sustainability simply means future-proof business management, namely on the three pillars of economy, ecology, and the social context.

Certainly, the transition to a sustainability-focused company requires additional resources in terms of employee capacities, equipment investments, external consulting costs, data and IT costs. Financing such measures also requires a company to have corresponding financial stability. But I am convinced that setting the course toward sustainability secures a company’s resilience in a tough market of displacement. It may still seem contradictory to some, but I am firmly convinced that sustainable business management in all its facets also leads to increased profitability. Purely technically speaking, the effect is obvious, because optimized CO2 footprints ultimately correspond to optimized cost efficiency.

Also not to be neglected is the social context, through which the motivation and loyalty of employees are definitely optimized. Another potential lies in the already existing expectations of clients and planners regarding the lived sustainability strategies of a company.

B_I umweltbau: What concrete sustainability measures have you implemented in the company recently?

Brunecker: To achieve the internal sustainability goals, various points have already been tackled or completed – but many more measures are still required. Listing them all would go too far here. Our latest energy audit report alone is more extensive than the current B_I umweltbau. So I will limit myself here to a certain insight into our activities.

The first electrification of our equipment technology with renewable energy began eleven years ago with solar panels installed on the truck roof of a UV system. At that time, these panels could barely power the interior lighting and the coffee machine. However, the technical progress in solar and battery storage systems is so impressive that we are now able to drastically reduce the use of fossil fuels on our construction sites through these batteries. We are also currently advancing an energy management monitoring system in order to analyze the total consumption of the systems even better and eliminate weak points. Thus, a certain focus lies on the electrification of our systems.

In addition, during the last financial year alone, new process technologies for the lining of sewer channels were brought into the company, which on the one hand completely dispense with the use of fossil raw materials and on the other hand, through the substitution of cement-based building materials, show a drastically reduced CO2 footprint.

With regard to the social context, I will refrain from listing all the actions in which we provide social support, both in large and small ways. However, it is worth mentioning that for many years we have been an audited member of the EMB-Wertemanagement Bau e.V. of the construction industry association. Here, the alignment of all employees with our defined values and our compliance system is externally audited annually by an independent party. In addition, our code of conduct is currently being revised. It is not only binding internally, but also for our subcontractors, suppliers and other service providers. In this way, we will ensure compliance with our social value system and our compliance throughout the entire supply chain.

B_I umweltbau: Following EU Directive 2022/2464, the so-called Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), as a large company you are required to prepare a sustainability report. However, the new so-called Omnibus Regulation provides significant simplifications. How do you view these regulations and what do they mean for you?

B_I environmental engineering: What role do energy audits, life cycle assessments, and the determination of the CO2 footprint play in your company?

Brunecker: Conducting an energy audit according to DIN EN 16247-1 plays a decisive role in optimizing the energy efficiency of our company. Even though these topics play little part in the day-to-day business of a site manager, our company assigns them very high priority for the reasons mentioned above. For example, we had already undergone an energy efficiency audit in 2016. What is interesting about this audit is that the auditor, among other things, records the company's energy consumption and CO2 emissions in full. He then presents the findings at various levels, and from this presentation recommendations for energy optimization follow.

The audits are repeated at regular intervals because implementing the recommendations is time-consuming and costly. However, this allows us to increase our energy efficiency year after year, which can be measured in real terms in €/kWh. It is also interesting that, due to the highly advanced digitalization in our industry and the associated data transfer, the server energy demand accounts for 60% of the total consumption of a branch office with 50 employees.

The CO2 emissions of our company are currently still 2,204.12 tonnes per year. With this effort, however, we renew around 300 kilometers of sewage pipes per year, protect our groundwater and the environment, and secure the preservation of value of our underground infrastructure.

Regarding the life cycle assessments, which are summarized through EPDs or LCAs, I must unfortunately criticize that, in my view, we are still in the Stone Age. In our industry, there are currently no specifications for the units of CO2 equivalents. Some manufacturers therefore choose the unit "m Liner," others choose "m3 Liner," and so on. This makes the comparability of the assessments more complicated. Free according to the motto: everyone does what they want, no one does what they should, and everyone joins in. And the black sheep are anything but rare in this area.

For example, in the alibi EPD of a liner manufacturer, only the minimum diameter (DN 100 mm) is specified and the life cycle phases are drastically shortened. There is an urgent need for action here. In my opinion, such practices belong in the category of what is now prohibited greenwashing, but very few are aware of this current shortcoming.

B_I umweltbau: In your opinion, are energy efficiency and the CO2 footprint suitable award criteria?

Brunecker: Of course. But we should take a closer look at this. The amendment to the Procurement Ordinance VgV 2024 offers our clients and planners various ways to better take sustainability aspects into account in the procurement process. Accordingly, our planners and clients may record social and environmental aspects as features of the service description. In doing so, they may relate to the manufacturing process, the service provision, or another stage in the life cycle of the contract object (§ 31 VgV). Furthermore, the contracting authority may request proof that the bidder complies with an accredited environmental management system according to ISO 14001 or EMAS (§ 49 VgV). Incidentally, this approach is also expressly recommended by the Federal Environment Agency in the „Legal Opinion on Environmentally Friendly Public Procurement“.

It is also new that the contracting authority, provided that the award criteria are related to the subject matter of the contract and allow effective competition, may, in addition to price, also take environmental or social aspects into account as award criteria (§ 58 VgV). In addition, the contracting authority may specify that the award criterion “costs” is to be calculated on the basis of the life cycle of the service (§ 59 VgV). Finally, the requirements of the contracting authority are to be set at the highest level of energy efficiency in the service description (§ 67 VgV).

These and various other aspects are indeed viable ways to make the awarding of contracts more sustainable. Unfortunately, I see such aspects far too rarely in our construction projects. The laws have been made. We now only need to comply with them.

B_I umweltbau: Product integration is an effective instrument for increasing your own competitiveness and raising market share by expanding the portfolio. What are your experiences with the integration of sustainable building materials?

Brunecker: I must unfortunately state, somewhat soberingly, that the real willingness to use sustainable building materials is still very restrained. The courage of our clients to use the procurement options described earlier or to actually use sustainable building materials should also be supported in the print media. On the one hand, I understand the hesitant behaviour, because some manufacturers declare their products quite aggressively with rainbow colours and thus confuse the market. Just because manufacturers, for example, declare ingredients of products as free from substances of very high concern (SVHC Substance of Very High Concern), they are, in my view, by no means to be classified as sustainable or environmentally friendly. A correct step – but the real declaration of a sustainable building material requires at least an EPD (Environmental Product Declaration) according to ISO 14025 or ISO 21930.

B_I umweltbau: According to the coalition agreement of the CDU/CSU and SPD, the Supply Chain Due Diligence Act (LkSG) is to be abolished and replaced by a law on international corporate responsibility. Supporters celebrate the reduction in bureaucracy planned as a result, while critics fear a massive step backward for the protection of human rights and the environment. What is your view on this?

Brunecker: So I consider the public pressure being exerted against the law to be populist polemics, and the lobbyists have done a thorough job in Berlin. What is so reprehensible about companies committing themselves to preventing, or at least minimizing, the risks in their supply chains with regard to human rights or environmental aspects? Of course, the law is not perfectly designed in technical terms. Therefore, there are certain ambiguities regarding practicability. But the preparation of a policy statement, risk management, the definition of responsibilities, and regular risk analyses are really not rocket science and serve the purpose. We are ready to implement the law, even if the talk shows in this country only report on costs, bureaucracy, and competitive disadvantages. It is noteworthy that large industrial companies are already acting here and have aligned their award criteria very strictly with the requirements of the LkSG.

B_I umweltbau: How is social responsibility expressed in your company?

Brunecker: This is also a topic about which one could write books. But let us simply start with compliance with collective bargaining agreements. Because social responsibility in any case includes adherence to labour rights, fair working conditions, and the avoidance of discrimination of any kind. Added to this is the obligation to provide professional continuing education and training for young people. I consider it unacceptable that companies are still actually operating today in our infrastructure maintenance market without joining the construction industry social welfare fund and thus disregarding the legally binding collective agreements of the construction industry.

Added to this are the aspects of transparency, anti-corruption, and fair business practices. Against this background, I would once again like to refer to the EMB values management (briefly EMB) of the construction industry mentioned at the beginning. It pursues not only a compliance strategy, but is a comprehensive values-based management concept. It is an instrument to signal outwardly and inwardly—and also to document—that the company behaves lawfully, with integrity, and fairly toward all those involved in the construction process.

Finally, I would like to briefly address our commitment to non-profit work. For we consider it natural to get involved voluntarily in order to support charitable projects. For this purpose, we have countless projects in the large and small areas of non-profit work in our program.

B_I umweltbau: Digitalization can also make a contribution to the sustainability of companies. What does this currently look like at your company?

Brunecker: Even when I entered the industry 30 years ago, the willingness to innovate was remarkable and, in my view, a key driver of the rapid growth in the field of trenchless infrastructure preservation. Back then, we still mounted SLR cameras in front of the monitors to capture the condition data visually, or for acceptance the renewed sewers were simply mirrored—which hardly anyone knows today.

In the digitalization sector as well, consulting firms are beating down your door. But a customized and sustainable digitalization strategy is, for me, a question of our company’s long-term viability. So we will not implement digitalization for its own sake! Digitalization must not complicate our processes; it is meant to relieve us, and digital transformation opens up opportunities and risks. This affects all business processes, and we rely on the gradual networking of all work areas. Our goal is to create a working environment in which transparency, shared knowledge, and mobile working at any time with real-time data are living practice. Even if computing capacity and its energy consumption skyrocket, we achieve dematerialization and ultimately increase our energy efficiency. With the right level of digitalization strategy, a contribution to sustainability is therefore delivered.

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