Jacek Kulig new EAE President
At the General Assembly in mid-December 2020, a review on latest activities and achievements was taken and a new board was elected. After six years as President, Ruud Van Eersel (Belgium) did not stand again for re-election to the Board of Directors and was recognized for his great contributions to the further development of the EAE. He remains active as a delegate of the Belgian ETICS association Xthermo in the EAE meetings. The General Assembly unanimously elected the former board member financial affairs Jacek Kulig as the new EAE President and confirmed the remaining board members in office. Kulig (Henkel), who already had been a member of the board when the EAE was founded, represents the Polish ETICS association SSO and thus the largest ETICS market in the European Union in terms of area. Arnaud Duvielguerbigny (PU Europe) and Dr. Andreas Kiesewetter (DAW) have been appointed as spokesmen of the extraordinary members.
The new President declared his willingness to continue the current line of operation of the association with special focus on further popularization of the ETICS technology, raising the quality of products and workmanship, and the important environmental contributions of thermal insulation systems. “An important topic for me is also the transfer of knowledge between national EAE member associations,” Kulig emphasized. “Not all European markets are currently at the same stage of development. I would like delegations from countries with less experience to receive maximum support from the more experienced countries.”
New members
The EAE has continued to grow in 2020: the National Insulation Association of Ireland (NIAI) became a new ordinary member and the companies Heck Wall Systems, Keimfarben and Paroc were welcomed to the EAE as extraordinary members.
Detailed work in the committees
EAE Managing Director Ralf Pasker provided an overview of the work done: “Corona is slowing us down in many places nationally and internationally, also and above all in communication with our members. We took this as an opportunity to upgrade our IT infrastructure immediately and managed to switch to more frequent web meetings and online collaboration. Our common goal was and still is to get the interests of the European ETICS industry even more considered in the political decision-making.” The EAE bodies do the necessary and detailed work.
The Marketing Committee, chaired by Diego Marcucci (Cortexa/Italy), is preparing the 5th European ETICS Forum, which is scheduled for 16th September 2021 in Prague/CZ. The second highlight this year will be the premiere of the EAE Award, a European award particularly for energy-efficient construction and renovation projects using ETICS. The application period for the EAE Award has been extended until 15th February 2021. Information and all documents can be found under www.ea-etics.eu/eae-award.
Workshops with CEN and DIN
The EAE Technical Committee is chaired by Federico Tedeschi (Cortexa). The current revision of the Construction Products Regulation (CPR), the work on the European standard for ETICS and the development of a European façade fire test method are currently underway. For all topics, the EAE has appropriately staffed task groups.
In the course of 2020, a series of online workshops on the future European ETICS standard was held together with CEN and DIN. The sessions can be reviewed under www.vimeo.com/etics.
“Renovation Wave” initiative supported
The EAE has also been quite active in numerous other topics such as providing complementary contributions and position papers on EU decision-making, including the EU strategy on climate change, the European Climate Pact and the role of energy-efficient buildings in the Renovation Wave initiative. According to the Commission, this initiative could lead to 35 million buildings being renovated by 2030 and at least 160,000 additional green jobs to be created. Following the Commission’s reply on an EAE letter, the actual labor market effect depends heavily on the EU member states’ chosen support measures for the economic recovery. The European Recovery & Resilience Plan is the EU’s largest recovery plan and was adopted on 10th December 2020. The medium-term financial framework and the additional “NextGenerationEU” support package have a total volume of EUR 1.8 trillion. At least 30% of this must be spent for measures supporting the European Green Deal.
The EAE strongly supports these initiatives and highlights the important role of energy-efficient construction and renovation. EAE’s memberships in the Renovate Europe Campaign, Construction Products Europe, ECCREDI and in the Construction 2050 Alliance, which was founded in June 2020, turned out to be helpful in this context.
