The researcher Francisco Rescalvo has presented today the talk “Industrialized building solutions to decarbonize construction” as part of the first day of the program “Impronta Granada, Ceuta and Melilla” organized by the Vice Rectorates of Social Innovation and the Ceuta and Melilla Campuses of the UGR.

The Impronta Granada, Ceuta and Melilla Program connects political and technical representatives from the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla with experts from the University of Granada and Granada’s institutional and business ecosystem. The program aims to promote scientific and academic collaboration to address the social, economic and environmental challenges of these cities.

The initiative is a pilot program carried out in the framework of the Erasmus Plus Urban Imprint project, focused on connecting universities and territories, and under the umbrella of the Impronta Granada alliance. Through this alliance, the aim is to create a productive dialogue between scientific knowledge and local needs, promoting projects that promote social, economic and environmental development.

More than 15 politicians and technicians from the cities will meet throughout the two days of programs with more than 40 researchers around three major thematic areas: economic development and sustainability.

Currently the construction sector has major challenges on the table. Decarbonization is one of them, as the sector accounts for 40% of all CO2 emissions worldwide.

Wood is the ideal material for decarbonization and industrialized construction. Dr. Rescalvo presented in his talk the innovative structural products developed in the project and transferred to the Iberolam spinoff (mixed beams MCLam and mixed wood-concrete system MCLamBS) that have a negative footprint and zero footprint, respectively, because wood offsets the emissions of concrete.

The new Directive (EU) 2024/1275 of the European Parliament and of the Council of April 24, 2024, on the Energy Performance of Buildings requires, among other things, that new buildings constructed after 2030 must be carbon neutral, which in the case of public buildings must be from 2028. The structural products on display are technical solutions in poplar wood and local pine to implement construction and housing policies in cities in accordance with the new European Bauhaus, and in particular in the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, protagonists of the transfer day, in compliance with the decarbonization imposed by Directive 2024/1275.

As an example of decarbonization policies, Dr. Rescalvo mentioned how the Xunta de Galicia has implemented a very disruptive measure, since it requires that public buildings must have at least 20% wood in their structure, a measure that can be extrapolated to other regions.