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Holistic Implementation of
EU 2050 Climate Goals
with Tailored Added Value
CO2050 Toolbox
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Service Modules
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SoftGrid offers its customers a customized toolbox for the sustainable planning, construction and operation of residential and non-residential buildings. Within the framework of a convincing long-term success story, the project-specific achievement of EU 2050 climate protection targets is one of our key project performance goals.
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Based on a holistic life cycle approach, our service modules complement each other along the entire value chain.
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By means of target group-oriented communication, we accompany our clients from the initial idea, through involvement in financing, to sustainable building operation, which is always preceded by efficient and robust planning.
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Our approach applies to new construction and refurbishment tasks, from individual buildings to ensembles and portfolios to entire city districts or factory sites.
Realized projects are
complex living environments
with individual requirements
The Big Picture
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EU 2050 Climate Targets
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The ambitious EU 2050 climate protection targets for minimizing CO2 and other emissions pose completely new challenges for the construction industry, municipalities and companies. China and other internationally relevant markets have set comparable targets, and the USA has rejoined the Paris Agreement.
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We are in a global paradigm shift that requires a disruptive change in planning culture. New types of planning methods need to be developed and implemented that ensure project success across the board in a global context.
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The main focus is on how a climate-neutral development strategy can be developed generating tangible added value that can be comprehensibly depicted in the company balance sheet and experienced on a daily basis in an attractive and convenient environment
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In doing so, the development strategy must not only obey scientific imperatives, but also appeal to users emotionally, moderate political sensitivities and synchronize different, sometimes competing goals of corporate divisions or within a municipality.
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Megatrends
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In futurology, there is the concept of megatrends - current phenomena in people's actions, thoughts and dreams that: firstly, appear intercultural and international. And secondly, result in a change in our social life over a longer period of 50 years. Among others, these are new models of working and the opportunities of advancing digitalization, but also demographic shifts, increasing health awareness and concern for our (everyday) environment.
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It lies in the successful, synergetic combination of these megatrends to sustainably adapt our environment for the lifestyles of the next half century. Sustainability is therefore always complex - a whole world based on aspects of energy efficiency, resource conservation, pollution prevention, but also comfort, well-being, community and joie de vivre.
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Megatrends
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Positive, empathetic and comfortable buildings and communities do not emerge from the implementation of climate protection goals, but in finding and using project-specific synergies that represent a holistic, concrete implementation of sustainability strategies: a living environment that socially, functionally, ecologically and aesthetically improves the everyday life of its users in a concrete way - whether in the office, in leisure time or at home. For property owners, this quality of projects means a reliably economical investment that is secure and stable in value over the long term.
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Projects that see themselves as sustainable living environments are literally "fit for the future" - for owners, users and operators.
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Successful projects
Connect
individual perspectives
Our Strategies
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Complexity as an asset
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In order to implement these visions of a holistic, livable and sustainable everyday world, technical possibilities, regulatory frameworks and efficient financing concepts must be combined with soft factors such as local expertise and communal identity. An individual "SoftGrid" is created as a connection of different perspectives with integration of the required expertise.
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Only when all planning factors, parameters and goals have been mapped transparently in this matrix can an efficient and targeted process emerge: possible synergies can be identified and utilized. In this way, we identify opportunities, optimize interactions and create systematically structured project strategies that offer concrete, measurable and depictable added value, far beyond the fulfilment of the EU 2050 as well as global climate protection goals.
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NEW PLANNING TOOLS FOR A NEW PLANNING CULTURE
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Our greatest challenge in sustainable building is not technical, but process-oriented and socio-cultural. We need a communicative, intuitive mapping of complexity that allows planning variants to be clearly quantified and evaluated in a qualified manner: a neutral "level playing field".
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Sustainability strategies as the basis for intelligent processes
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Far too often, sustainability is seen as something that "can be added (later)". However, SoftGrid understands sustainability as the basis of an intelligent process, which connects social, economic and ecological aspects in a comprehensible way in the first place and contours a cross-thematic objective: a concrete vision! And this is always a complex endeavor.
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Evaluate - Integrate - Realize – Replicate
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Our CO2050 Toolbox maps the entire process from goal setting, planning and execution to the operation of building projects under the headings of respective required key actions: evaluate, integrate, realize and replicate. Each step combines technical planning with political communication, individual targets and guiding principles within a flexible weighting.
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Complexity does not arise here as the ticking off of numerous individual aspects, but in the design of robust and flexible development strategies over the entire life cycle - starting from their backdrop of global climate protection goals, against which an individual, contextual and empathetic vision can be implemented.
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Fit-for-Future
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The result is projects that are inherently flexible, expandable, scalable and adaptable, based on broadly integrated objectives. This makes it easy for users to identify with their environment and for owners and operators to react efficiently to the unexpected.
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Efficiency through network philosophy
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"We solve complex planning challenges with the innovative power of a network of experts with a passion for thinking outside the box."
(Rolf Demmler)
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In order to be able to implement such a planning culture in practice, we rely on a wide range of expertise, some of it very specialized, which we cover in an (international) network of small and medium-sized companies. The management, communication and technical integration always lie with us.
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In this configuration we can realize our planning philosophy: an efficient structure with more extensive technical integration, fewer overhead costs and a truly flexible way of designing, controlling and implementing. We see ourselves as the antithesis of corporate business - direct, passionate and highly flexible to the requirements of the specific project:
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A way of identifying with the aspirations, goals and visions of our customers, which they value highly.
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Our success in China is also built on this conception: a somewhat typical German engineering philosophy of small, highly capable partners - integrated into an internationally compatible expertise and service culture.
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This fills the gaps in the planning process that generic, guideline-oriented solutions simply cannot provide. From this experience and the extremely positive feedback from our clients in the global corporate business, we know about the quality of this open network structure and planning culture.
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Sg ... for Businesses
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SoftGrid USPs for Businesses
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Flexibility and efficiency across all project phases
Comprehensive, holistic perspective and expertise
Reliable identification and use of synergies in the specific context
Implementing individual planning targets
Data-based planning and communication processes
Quantifiable and qualifiable design variants at each planning milestone
Executive summaries as comprehensive basis for decision-making
Long-term cost security over the entire life cycle
EU - China Bridge
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For more than 20 years, we have been working intensively between the cultures in China and the EU. We have extensive local expertise in both markets, which we also know how to combine in international projects.
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In this way, we can not only use our planning expertise from both locations for specific projects, but also manage the technical and strategic project communication between China and Europe in the respective cultures in a targeted and efficient manner with all project participants.
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Global companies in particular benefit from our unique knowledge and experience in Sino-German projects, from strategic development studies (VW) to the realization of sustainable buildings in China for Ardex and BASF.
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In doing so, we know exactly about the obstacles and pitfalls of the Chinese construction and planning industry, which many companies still underestimate. This is how we realize projects in a cost-saving way, faster, more efficiently and with the desired quality.
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Extensive expertise and professional networks in both markets
Extensive knowledge of local regulations, conventions and expectations
Sensitivity in cultural interaction for efficient project progress
Pro-active use of local synergies in the planning process
Internal technical management of processes between teams in the EU and China
Strategic "face-to-face" communication at both bridgeheads on site
Technical "face-to-face" communication at both bridgeheads on site
Sg ... for municipalities
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SoftGrid USPs for municipalities
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Flexibility and efficiency across all project phases
Comprehensive, holistic perspective and expertise
Reliable identification and use of synergies in the specific context
Integration of political and municipal guidelines and targets
Data-based planning and communication processes
Quantifiable and qualifiable design variants at each planning milestone
Clear presentation of all aspects in their interdependencies for target-oriented communication with political bodies
Possibility to integrate of a wide range of institutions in planning process (public utilities, energy suppliers, housing cooperatives, etc.)
Long-term cost security over the entire life cycle
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Future-proof planning
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We have been working in China for almost 20 years in a fast-paced, constantly changing social and political landscape. In the country with the highest urbanization rate worldwide, we cannot avoid thinking about and strategically anticipating possible future adaptation, optimization and revision in every municipal planning concept.
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Buildings, clusters, districts are never "finished", they are always changing. In view of the EU climate protection goals, this is even more so now, than we have been used to over the past decades.
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SoftGrid views each planning component - building, exterior, infrastructure, ensemble - as a self-adapting system: a dynamic optimization in the local context. At the same time, we see it as a basic component of our work to pass on the "lessons learned" not only within but beyond projects, even if the future follow-up should no longer fall within our remit. In this way, we effectively set up an innovation cycle that is effective far beyond the current task.
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Strategically designed mechanisms for adaptation to future requirements
Comprehensive documentation of the "lessons learned" for future projects
Systematic innovation cycle including all project participants through all project phases
Extensive experience in dealing with highly diverse project stakeholders
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