By Piotr Jakóbczak, sales director, Flowcrete & Vandex, Tremco CPG Poland

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Green transformation has been the centre of attention for the construction market for years. EU countries are taking action to stop climate change and limit the average increase in global temperature compared to pre-industrial times. Therefore, more and more attention is being paid to carbon emissions, and buildings – considered responsible for 38% of CO2 emissions in Europe – are an important part of this strategy.

A green, or sustainable, building is constructed and operated in a way that minimises its negative impact on the environment, ensures comfort for its users, and is resistant to climate change. Pro-ecological solutions are applied at the design, construction, and operation stages.

Our company, Tremco CPG Poland, has been present in the building-materials market in Poland for 30 years. We produce and supply high-quality materials and technologies that contribute to the increase in the durability and energy efficiency of buildings and constructions. Our group offers solutions for the six most important parts of buildings – from foundations and bottom plate, through ceilings, external walls with windows, doors and façade, to internal partition walls and roofs.

Numerous products manufactured and supplied by us, such as resin floors and waterproofing for foundations, roofs and bridges, increase the durability of structural elements. Our portfolio also includes innovative materials and technologies that contribute to improving the energy efficiency of buildings. These are systems for sealing windows, doors and façade joints, External Thermal Insulation Composite Systems (ETICS) and façade materials that limit heat loss in winter and excessive warming in summer.

As a member of the Polish Green Building Council (PLGBC), we keep up with market trends in sustainable construction. Currently, the most important topics for producers of building materials, apart from the above-mentioned durability and energy efficiency of buildings, comprise the health and well-being of the building’s users and the indoor air quality. It is influenced by, among others, the content and the emission of volatile organic compounds (VOC) from construction and finishing materials. Another important topic is limiting the built-in carbon footprint – providing Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) as a source of data on CO2 emissions in the life cycle of products and promoting recycling.

When talking about green materials and technologies, it is crucial to provide reliable information based on data that can be verified.

Examples of our solutions that contribute to the increase in the durability of buildings and structures include:

  • Vandex waterproofing products for sealing, protecting and repairing concrete, used, among others, in engineering and industrial construction, drinking water reservoirs and sewage treatment plants.
  • Flowcrete resin floors that protect the concrete substrate and structural elements (bottom slab and ceilings of intermediate floors) against the possibly destructive effects of external factors. For example, Deckshield polyurethane car park deck coating, which has excellent crack-bridging abilities, protects the concrete substrate against water ingress, which could cause corrosion of the reinforcement crucial for the structure’s durability.

Numerous Tremco CPG Poland’s solutions contribute to improving the energy efficiency of buildings.

  • For example, illbruck products for sealing and bonding window, door and façade joints are used in energy-saving and passive construction. This brand offers complete system solutions tailored to every installation situation, which reduces heat loss and thus saves the energy required to heat the building.
  • Dryvit ETICS systems and façade materials improve the energy efficiency of buildings (new and subject to thermal upgrade) by reducing heat loss in winter and excessive heating in summer. To give an example, in the Burlington Square residential building in Manchester, thanks to the Dryvit ACR 200 system combined with Stone Mist plaster, a very good heat transfer coefficient (U parameter) of 0.13 W/(m2K) has been obtained.
  • Even the use of light-reflecting colours of Dryvit façade materials and Tremco AlphaGuard PUMA roof coverings supports the green transformation of buildings by reducing the internal temperature and cooling expenses.

As it was mentioned above, an important issue for sustainable construction is the health and well-being of building users, impacted, among others, by indoor air quality and reduction of noise.

  • For Flowcrete resin floors, we offer a wide range of systems with low VOC emissions, including epoxy Flowcrete LE group, Deckshield ID polyurethane (PU) car park flooring system, and Flowfresh industrial flooring made of PU resins and cement, with Polygiene® antimicrobial additive. For these systems, covering all the most popular applications, we received the Indoor Air Comfort ® Gold certifications issued by Eurofins.

The Indoor Air Comfort ® Gold certification confirms that these products meet the strictest criteria for volatile organic compounds emission and their production processes guarantee the highest quality and the care of the environment. The combination of laboratory tests of our materials and regular supervision of their production processes gives our customers the certainty that the flooring solution we provide positively affects the evaluation of the investment in the context of sustainable development – from the stage of sourcing raw materials, through their mixing, to full hardening of resin floors and their use.

  • Another example is Flowshield Acoustics, a floor based on flexible polyurethane resins with high acoustic insulation properties (up to 16 dB, PN-EN ISO 10140-3). This coefficient, expressed in decibels (dB), determines how much the floor absorbs the sounds of impacts and footsteps.

Another important issue is the decarbonisation of buildings and promoting the circular economy, i.e. recycling and repairs instead of replacement. In this area, as a member of FEICA, the Association of the European Adhesive & Sealant Industry, we have EPDs available for our products. Regarding recycling, our floors can be made on existing substrates, and after chipping together with the concrete with which they are permanently bonded, they can be reused as a base for road construction and as construction rubble.

To sum up – we are constantly investing in R&D to develop our offer so that it supports the green transformation of buildings and meets sustainable construction requirements, including those related to environmental certifications LEED, BREEAM, DgNB, WELL, etc. We see growing interest in this topic from investors, mainly office real estate developers, but increasingly also from industrial and warehouse facilities. This motivates us to develop new products that will not only meet but also exceed the standards of sustainable construction because this can be a competitive advantage.