Yes, we want to!
From “we must” and “yes, but” to “we want to!”
Thilo Ebert
Responding to the major climate challenges of our time with a positive “can-do attitude”: This approach has enabled ATP sustain to use the EU’s Climate Goals and Sustainable Development Goals as a basis for identifying areas for action, in which we as ATP can assume concrete responsibility and have a real impact. The result is the ATP Green Deal.
The six cornerstones of the ATP Green Deal provide evidence of our determination to seriously address the issue of sustainability. Within our own sphere of activity. They demonstrate our readiness to lead; that it is not enough for us to talk loudly about the problem and then do nothing, paralyzed with indecision. Because many companies have comfortably adopted a “we must” and “yes, but” position, without developing concrete solutions.
The first cornerstone of the ATP Green Deal was obvious: We want to reduce the CO₂ emissions of our buildings. In order to achieve this, we have intensely focused on the things that – truly and honestly – can help us concretely in this process. A phase of intense research was followed by the development of the first tangible tools for the BIM-based calculation of climate-friendly ideal variants. The CO₂ Tool for buildings even received the Green BIM Award in 2022. The laudation during the award ceremony was music to our ears – we were praised and recognized in particular for having gone ahead and set our own standards for sustainable integrated design rather than waiting for laws and guidelines.
Besides this, we have also achieved something else: This journey has given us an advantage with our clients in terms of the advice that we can give – we are already able to turn to aspects of the ATP Green Deal as fixed elements of our design approach.
It’s about moving from talking to acting.
So we have learnt that it is worthwhile starting by looking at the simple things; stop doing something automatically just because a certain pattern of behavior has become familiar, shift simple levers in order to join up with the right partners to fight for change – as so perfectly analyzed by Felix Jansen in his DGNB blog article. This, for example, is how ATP came to create a group of super-users for sustainable construction products – the potential for many of these specific specialist groups to enthusiastically address a subject is huge.
