Bayer’s EcoCommercial Building recently received the “Best Practice of Global Green Building” Award for its EcoCommercial Building (ECB) Program. The award was presented by the Global Forum on Human Settlements (GFHS) at the “Conference on Sustainable Human Settlements”, co-organized by the GFHS, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), the United Nations Human Settlements Program (UNEP), the United Nations Environment Program (UN-HABITAT), and supported by a wide variety of international organizations. This conference is associated with Rio+20, the 2012 United Nations Council on Sustainable Development.
Many governments and organizations have started investing heavily in environmentally-friendly technologies and methods, with a focus on renewable energy resources and development of new materials. In fact, the United Nations Rio+20 generated $513 billion in commitments for the approved plan to bring clean water, sanitation and energy to the world's poor without further degrading the planet. Government leaders, bankers and corporate CEOs took advantage of the gathering of 50,000 people — the largest meeting in UN history — to announce new partnerships, programs and investments.
The prestigious award received by Bayer highlights the ECB Program’s global commitment to sustainable development in the building construction sector. The company has been expanding its ECB Program’s regional networks throughout Europe, the Middle East, North America, Brazil, China, India, Japan, and Thailand, each with focused capabilities for their own unique market.
Its most recent Lighthouse project in Qingdao involves the construction of a new office building which, when complete, will be Bayer’s first zero-emission building in China, and will be 100% carbon neutral. The project was developed under Bayer’s ECB Program and takes full advantage of the program’s ability to deploy a wide range of innovative technologies in the area of sustainable building construction. The Qingdao Lighthouse project features integrated applications, such as a passive building envelope, geothermal source heat pump, and renewable energy supplied by a photovoltaic system.
As we move on towards a new era where sustainability becomes an urgent concern, the plastics industry is poised to offer its share through solutions geared at protecting the environment to save the lives of millions of people.
