Do green buildings solve the CO2 problem in the construction industry?

Frankfurt Green and sustainable are words that no real estate manager can do without when making public appearances. But the industry is much less fond of talking about so-called gray energy, i.e. the emissions caused during construction. The open words that Olivier Elamine, CEO of the Hamburg office rental company Alstria, finds are all the more astonishing: “No new building can save the CO2 that was emitted for its construction,” he says in an interview with the Handelsblatt.

“The potential carbon savings over 50 years of a building’s operation is dwarfed by emissions over the 18 months of construction,” he explains. This is an unusual opinion for a real estate manager – but an assessment that climate protection advocates also represent.

This is because significantly more energy is used for the construction of new buildings and more emissions are released than for the renovation of existing buildings. So far, however, this so-called gray energy has not been taken into account in the assessment.