Our Concept
The building sector is a very important field of activity with regards to efforts to promote ‘sustainable’ means of production, to protect resources through the use of predominantly renewable sources of raw materials, to save energy through a more rational usage, to protect the Earth’s atmosphere from the effects of global warming and protect health through precautionary measures.
Every construction activity encroaches upon the natural environment and is connected with the consumption of limited resources. Around 40% of the world’s resources are swallowed up by this sector and the area of building and accommodation accounts for around 30% of society’s total energy consumption.
Our responsibility towards future generations requires us to undertake every effort to reduce these encroachments to the lowest level possible and to limit our use of resources to a necessary minimum. For the building sector this means promoting the use and application of building products which help to minimize the consumption of fossil fuels and limited resources.
In light of the fact that central Europeans spend more than 90% of their lives in enclosed rooms, means that the health-related aspects of building products, above all for interior construction purposes, represent an increasingly important factor influencing the goal of a ‘sustainable’ development within the economy. The health-related aspects of building products represent not only a social component but also fundamentally affect the longevity and therefore the economic life of buildings.
On a voluntary basis and with the help of its quality seal, natureplus helps to inform and raise the level of awareness within the building sector about particularly future-oriented, sustainable and health-promoting building and accommodation products. The aim is to provide the consumer and building professional with a reliable orientation mechanism, uninfluenced by economic interests.
The natureplus®-Quality Seal is valid across the whole of Europe – EU and associated countries – according to uniform regulations. Within its complete area of validity, it is helping to promote a new culture of sustainable building. To this aim, natureplus e.V. has brought together all those actors within the value chain who share their values. They include members from the building materials industry, building materials suppliers, the construction industry and tradesmen, environmental organisations, consumer and building biologist’s organisations, trades unions, scientific institutions and accredited testing institutes, from every country in Europe. Their interests are represented in a democratic and equal manner to reach a consensus to achieve the above mentioned sustainable developments within the building sector. These common interests provide the framework for the definition of requirements that building and accommodation products must fulfill in order to be certified with the natureplus®-Quality Seal. The requirements must be defined in such a way that only 20% of products within a product category are eligible for certification. Only then can it be expected that the quality seal will be able to exercise a guiding influence towards the promotion of a culture of sustainable building.