A hundred-year balance Annual Report 2010 - Uzin Utz AG

most recent example of such an optimisation in 2010
was the final formulation of the low-water and very lowemission
dispersion parquet adhesive UZIN MK 80 S Neu.
The spreading characteristics and also the filming speed
have both been significantly improved. The new development
now offers a significant advantage over comparable
products on the market with regard to wood deformation
when laying 2-layer parquet. The new product
contains less water, and as a system component has
been specially matched to the dispersion parquet primer
UZIN PE 380 Neu. In the course of this work, the
corresponding dispersion primer UZIN PE 380 was also
optimised, in order to simultaneously improve the performance
of the basic parquet system. Since its further
development, the new primer for absorbent substrates,
on which the parquet can be laid direct with dispersion
parquet adhesives, complies with the requirements of
the most demanding and best-known emission labels in
Germany – the “Blue Angel” and “Emicode EC 1 Plus”.
The optimised system “UZIN PE 380 - UZIN MK 80 S”
therefore represents an important alternative for use in
buildings in which technical functionality and the strictest
ecological criteria are of the utmost importance.
3. General building approval for parquet adhesives
Due to changed stipulations in the Construction Regulations
List B Part 1, an “allgemeine bauaufsichtliche Zulassungspflicht”
(abZ) (“general building approval obligation”)
applies since 1st January 2011 for parquet adhesives
which are intended for use in regularly used rooms. This
means that only parquet adhesives which have been approved
by the Deutsches Instituts für Bautechnik (DIBT)
(“German Institute of Building Technology”), and are designated
by the monitoring symbol (Ü) may be used in
such areas. Infringement of this requirement constitutes
an offence, and can lead to the customer rejecting
acceptance of the service. The initiation of this regulation
is subject to the EU Building Products Directive and
the main requirement contained in it regarding “Hygiene,
health, environmental protection”, the purpose of
which is to protect users of buildings against emissions
(VOCs) from building products. However, since VOC requirements
are not yet regulated at the EU level, it has
only been possible to specify “national” emission limit
values. For this reason, the DIBT requires an emission
restriction in regularly used rooms for all parquet adhesives,
which is based on a special test schedule of the
“Ausschuss zur gesundheitlichen Bewertung von Bauprodukten”
(AgBB) (“Committee for the Health Assessment
of Building Products”) already existing in Germany,
and following successful testing issues an approval,
which is valid for five years. The specialist departments
of Chemical Analysis, Product Safety and Fluid Product
Development have subjected all parquet adhesives of the
product range to the AgBB test procedure and qualified
them for the abZ certification. This provided the requirement
for the Ü-designation for the parquet adhesives
UZIN MK 80 S Neu, UZIN MK 92 S, UZIN MK 92 S dark,
UZIN MK 100 and UZIN MK 200 and a large number
of own-brand products, and the necessary works production
controls were also installed. Extensive preparations
were also made during the reporting year in order
to comply promptly with the next approval obligation
for the product group “floor covering adhesives”, which
will in future be subject to these regulations and is due
to come into effect on 1st January 2012.
4. Ecology and other product safety topics
a) Sustainability
For Uzin Utz AG, sustainability is more than just a marketing
trend. Sustainability is a fundamental requirement
on building works and building products, and will
therefore become a key success factor for the construction
industry over the coming years. Our uniform
long-term thinking shows that sustainability at UZIN
Utz AG is not just a convenient label, but is regarded as
a sign of great commercial responsibility. Sustainability
is therefore not regarded as being one-dimensional, but
also takes into account ecological, economic and social
considerations. Now that the interdisciplinary project
“Sustainability” has been in hand for several years with
very great success by the specialist department Product
Safety, together with the company management,
Uzin Utz AG succeeded in 2010, as the first company in
the field of laying materials, in producing environmental
product declarations, so-called EPDs, for a complete
system, and having them assessed externally by the
“Sachverständigenausschuss des Instituts für Bauen und
Umwelt” (“Expert Committee of the Institute for Construction
and the Environment”). EPDs are the most suitable
instrument for providing valuable and trustworthy
ecological product data for architects and planners.
So far there are no EPDs from any market participants
in the sector, neither for corresponding products nor for
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