• Improvement of economic performance and energy efficiency of buildings
• Technology supports owners and concrete manufacturers in obtaining sustainability certification for their buildings
• First reference project in Europe

BASF now offers its Green Sense® Concrete technology for the resource-efficient production and processing of concrete in Europe as well. Green Sense Concrete is a service package from BASF that helps manufacturers improve the performance characteristics of concrete such as resilience, workability, durability and environmental friendliness. The package comprises three components: The optimization of the concrete mix design by BASF experts, the use of hyperplasticizers from BASF such as MasterGlenium®, and an eco-efficiency analysis of the concrete mix. The analysis serves to ascertain economic and ecological performance criteria of the concrete in comparison to traditional concrete mix designs.

The use of the Green Sense Concrete technology has for example led to savings of around 15,800 tons of CO 2 equivalents and approximately 25,400 megawatt hours of energy in the construction of the new One World Trade Center in New York City compared with a conventional concrete mix design. In this way, BASF provides solutions for urgent challenges of the construction industry such as the high share in primary energy consumption, in greenhouse gases and in fine dust emissions.

Reference project in Europe
The Green Sense Concrete technology was first used in Europe in the construction of a new BASF office building in Ludwigshafen, Germany. The seven story building has a total area of about 35,000 m² and is scheduled for completion in 2015. It will provide more than 1,400 additional office workspaces. BASF aims for gold standard certification from the German Sustainable Building Council (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Nachhaltiges Bauen, DGNB). In order to achieve this, the entire building has to meet strict standards during construction, service life, and dismantling. The DGNB system looks at all important aspects of sustainable construction throughout the building’s entire lifecycle. The certification process covers six areas – ecology, economy, socio cultural and functional aspects, technical quality, processes, and the site of the building – assigning equal importance to both the economic aspect of sustainable construction and ecological criteria.

Around 2,100 m³ of concrete were processed in the casting of the foundation slab for the new office building. The mix design was optimized using an eco-efficiency analysis. “We have aligned our concrete admixtures with the raw materials used by the concrete manufacturer, thereby achieving savings of around 30 per cent in CO2 equivalents compared with a conventional concrete mix design,” says Dr. Sven Asmus, globally responsible for concrete admixtures at BASF.

Another important benefit of the optimized concrete mix design is the substantial reduction of installation related noise at the construction site: Since the admixtures MasterMatrix® and MasterGlenium® ensured high flowability and self-compacting properties of the concrete mix, it was largely unnecessary to compress the concrete through vibration. This drastically reduced the noise exposure for local residents and workers at the construction site.

According to DGNB accredited auditors, these improvements in the mix design will contribute significantly to the intended certification of the finished structure.

Transparency and documentation through Life Cycle Analyzer A clear documentation and the transparency of the entire construction process also play a significant role in the certification process. This is exactly what BASF’s Life Cycle Analyzer can be used for. The special software enables concrete producers and operators to significantly improve process efficiency, energy consumption, selection of materials and quality. The combination of market know how, research competence and consultancy expertise makes the Green Sense Concrete technology from BASF an elaborated, field proven concept for sustainable construction.