All about bicycles, electric-assisted bikes, technology and safety in the press

In our daily work as we deal with bicycle safety, technology and user manuals we come across lots of safety risks. The most frequent ones are published in articles of the leading German special-interest magazines TOUR – Europas Rennrad-Magazin Nr. 1, BIKE – Das Mountainbike Magazin Europas Nr. 1 and E-Bike – Das Pedelec-Magazin to make this information important for the sector accessible to a wider public.

For many years now the Eurobike Show Daily accompanying the annual international Eurobike Show has given us the opportunity to publish our perspective on major developments in the cycle industry in full-page articles.

We also speak regularly in independent lectures about all topics relating to bicycle technology and bicycle market. In addition, we are regularly cited by further special-interest magazines or trade journals as well as more and more by radio and television and in their media reports, which shows us that we are completely right with our information. The section NEWS informs you about the latest news from our specialist fields. The reports and publications of this section are listed chronologically or according to topics of interest.

DGNB Blog, 2020/09/17

“A building stands for lifelong learning!”

Understanding and optimising a building in its entirety, creating an aesthetically pleasing and functional company headquarters, making bicycles synonymous with a trendy way of life, living sustainably, driving his business forward – these are the goals entrepreneur Dirk Zedler wanted to achieve with a single construction project. Building the headquarters for Zedler Fahrradwelt is a project, which makes use of the DGNB Sustainability Certificate for Buildings In Use to create an interconnected, sustainable building.

“I have always wanted to organise my business in a sustainable way,” says Dirk Zedler. He is sitting in his company headquarters, the Zedler Fahrradwelt, on the outskirts of Ludwigsburg, a small town north of Stuttgart, which is better known for its baroque palace. “What I never wanted was to embed sustainability as a rigid module. In my opinion, it should be a kind of filter across everything. Only in this way will a business be sustainable and not sustainability a business in itself”. Now that his company headquarters has achieved top marks and a platinum rating according to the DGNB Sustainability Certificate for Buildings In Use and has also been awarded the “Climate Positive” status, he wants to take stock and reflect. How did Zedler and his company get to this point?

Where to start?

The story begins in 2014. Then, Dirk Zedler occupied a rented building and is dissatisfied. His organisation tests and inspects bicycles with regard to durability, safety and user-friendliness, collates expert opinions and damage analyses as well as technical documentation such as operating instructions and risk analyses. Bicycle manufacturers and developers as well as courts and insurance companies from all over the world are customers. The company had a high energy consumption due to its laboratories used for testing, in which numerous machines are usually running at full capacity. At the same time, the indoor climate of the building was poor. Although he already ran the company on electricity from hydropower and was experimenting with principles of energy conversion by using a heat exchanger, he realised that he wanted a fundamental change. But where to start?

(...)

Read the entire article here.

Author: Witold Buenger
Photo: Zedler-Institut

Go back