Innovative green facade system wins two prizes

The Sustainability Day of the German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB) took place on Tuesday. The winners of the DGNB's Sustainability Challenge were chosen during the event. The special "Biodiversity" prize and the audience award went to the wild climate wall [de], a joint project by the Institute for Acoustics and Building Physics (IABP) and the Institute of Landscape Planning and Ecology (ILPÖ) at the University of Stuttgart, the Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics and HELIX Pflanzensysteme GmbH [de]. The project is funded by the Stuttgart Climate Innovation Fund (Stuttgarter Klima-Innovationsfond and The Nature Conservancy. 

The special "Biodiversity" prize winner was selected by a jury of experts on Wednesday, alongside prizes from the innovation, research and start-up categories. The cross-category Audience Award was decided by a public online vote and the votes of the guests on site, where the finalists from all categories presented their projects once again. "We are delighted with the two awards," says Moritz Weckmann, a research associate at the IABP. "These awards are a clear signal that flora and fauna have a profoundly positive impact on humans and that our research is garnering significant interest across Germany." We are convinced that the joint efforts of citizens, administration and science will succeed in making our inner cities greener and more liveable for people and animals."

The "Biodiversity" category was aimed at companies and projects that contribute to the protection and preservation of ecosystem and species diversity. The wild Klimawand fulfills these criteria and has thus made it into the three finalists for the special prize.

"The innovative green facade system for existing buildings counteracts the displacement of greenery in urban areas. In addition to climate-regulating balancing functions, it also supports the healthy growth of heterogeneous plant populations and increases the structural richness to create high-quality habitats for insects and birds. "Research on, for, and with living organisms has its challenges, as predicting results is difficult and we have to deal with changing conditions," says Eva Bender, a research associate at ILPÖ. "We are therefore even more pleased that our effort to think more holistically about green façades as a climate adaptation measure and to harness their potential for biodiversity has been recognized." The basic idea of biodiversity-promoting vertical greening, which was first tested on 12 m² of façade surface at the University of Stuttgart in 2021, is now a well-known research project throughout Germany."

 The German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB) is an independent non-profit organization. It consists of more than 2,500 member organizations from all areas of the construction and real estate sector, the financial sector, municipalities, clubs and associations as well as universities. Among other things, the DGNB offers a certification system for sustainable buildings and neighborhoods. This is internationally regarded as the most advanced of its kind and is used worldwide. More than 10,000 projects in around 30 countries have already been certified by the DGNB.