Berlin startup to wrap ‘second skin’ homes in response to rising heating costs

A Berlin-based startup plans to renovate apartment buildings in the German city of Bochum, giving them a custom-built wooden “second skin”. The aim is to make them more energy efficient.

The Ecoworks project reflects growing demand for climate-friendly and energy-saving renovations in response to the German energy crisis, which has caused rising heating costs.

🇧🇷 The sector of the German economy failed to meet its carbon dioxide emissions targets last year.

That is now changing due to rising energy prices and a new law that splits the proceeds of a carbon dioxide emissions tax between tenants and landlords, depending on the energy efficiency of buildings.

“In this building, the savings in terms of energy costs are between 70% and 80%,” Emanuel Heisenberg, chief executive of Ecoworks, told Reuters, referring to apartment buildings in Bochum.

Buildings account for 35% of total energy consumption in Germany, Europe’s largest economy, and nearly a third of the country’s 19.25 million residential buildings have the two lowest ratings for energy efficiency, a survey found in February. study by the real estate and housing association GdW.

Soaring interest rates, rising energy and raw material prices and constant changes in subsidies are limiting investment, Andreas Schichel, a spokesman for the GdW, told Reuters.

The shortage of construction workers and lengthy renovation processes are additional barriers that make landlords reluctant to undertake projects of this type.

Heisenberg’s company is trying to overcome these obstacles by designing prefabricated facades that offer climate neutrality, with a technology that requires about a third of the time and half of the traditional workforce.

“Typically, projects like these take six to nine months. In our case, it takes 15 weeks,” says Heisenberg.

By using cellulose for insulation and wood for the exterior facades, the company says its renovations are carbon dioxide neutral.

“It’s not possible to demolish all the houses and rebuild them with cement and steel. That would blow our carbon budget way too much. So you have to build with renewable materials like wood,” said Heisenberg.