Rigips sustainability & recycling

Image

Sustainable drywall for healthy living and working spaces

Come and see for yourself how sustainable Rigips is. We spend up to 90% of our time indoors every day. At Rigips, we believe that well-designed spaces significantly impact our well-being. That's why we develop forward-thinking, sustainable construction solutions that create maximum user comfort for all needs and life situations.

Our goal is to develop solutions that will meet tomorrow's requirements, designing buildings and spaces with the future in mind. At the heart of our developments are reliable and safe systems that can meet the ever-growing and increasingly diverse demands of the construction industry.

RIGIPS specialises in the production of environmentally friendly building materials made from the natural raw material gypsum.

Therefore, we are particularly dedicated to sustainable construction. For us, this means enhancing the comfort and quality of life of our customers, as well as the value of their homes. This commitment spans generations.

Our sustainability concept is based on the principle of circularity, and our conviction that we can contribute to greater comfort and sustainability at every stage of the value chain. Do you have questions or suggestions? If so, please email us at [email protected]

Image

RIGIPS – naturally healthy
Gypsum has existed for around 200 million years, and it has been used as a building material for around 2,000 years. When it comes to traditional, time-tested building materials, gypsum is certainly one of them.

There is an increasing demand today for products made from natural, biologically safe materials that are easy to recycle. For us, producing building materials that meet these requirements is a long-standing tradition. Rigips boards are made from the natural raw materials gypsum and cardboard (paper). This guarantees 100% environmental compatibility and healthy construction.
This is demonstrated by the seal of approval repeatedly awarded to us by the Rosenheim Institute for Building Biology (IBR), as well as the Sentinel House Institute's recommendation of an increasing number of Rigips products for healthier construction.

But Rigips boards are not only biologically safe, but they also significantly contribute to your personal well-being. Gypsum has the beneficial property of absorbing moisture from the air and releasing it back into the environment when temperatures rise. This naturally regulates the indoor climate, keeping it almost constant. This means that the human body does not have to constantly adjust, which is good for health.

Gypsum as an opportunity - Learn more about the extraction of natural gypsum in the video...

From nature, for nature - RIGIPS and the raw material gypsum

Image

Natural gypsum deposits were formed through a geological process whereby gypsum dissolved in water and settled in shallow marine bays that were drying out slowly, creating the deposits that we know today. Gypsum is a natural resource that can be found in numerous rock formations today. In Germany, areas with significant gypsum deposits include the South Harz region, North Hesse, Middle Franconia, Lower Franconia and Baden-Württemberg.

In order to manufacture our products, we must extract natural resources, which inevitably involves intervening in nature. In the spirit of sustainable development, we ensure that the extraction areas we use are returned to nature for future generations through extensive re-naturalisation and recultivation measures.

Thanks to our research and technological developments, we have found a way to reduce gypsum extraction and protect nature. For this reason, we use REA gypsum, a by-product of an industrial process, in our production process. Using it in our Rigips boards allows it to be used as a raw material. This avoids the need for disposal processes, reduces energy consumption and saves on emissions, for example by avoiding transport, intermediate storage and final disposal.
Taking this responsible approach to our environment and its resources is central to our understanding of sustainable action. We have set out our commitment in concrete environmental guidelines.

Increase productivity - reduce resource consumption

Image

For a manufacturing company like RIGIPS, taking responsibility for future generations involves continually examining and critically reviewing production processes.

That's exactly what we do - constantly! And systematically! As part of the group-wide "World Class Manufacturing" program, we work on continuously improving our production processes and results. This involves consistently avoiding defective products and carefully managing all resources, particularly in terms of energy use and reducing CO₂ emissions sustainably.

Image

Using new technologies and investing in our production facilities and closed material cycles also helps us to reduce our environmental footprint.

These efforts have delivered tangible results: between 2017 and 2023, CO₂ emissions in Scopes 1 and 2 were reduced by 38%. Scope 2 emissions were reduced to zero by switching entirely to green electricity in 2022.

• Scope 1 covers emissions for which the company is directly responsible. These are mainly emissions arising from production processes;
• Scope 2 covers indirect emissions, such as those resulting from electricity consumption.

In the rare case that the Rigips boards we produce do not pass our internal quality controls, they are 100% recycled and reintroduced into the production process. With our new recycling buckets for our ProMix ready-to-use fillers, we actively avoid plastic waste. We aim to gradually convert additional product packaging with the same goal. Even for unavoidable transport packaging, there is a sustainable solution: Our partner Interseroh reliably collects used transport packaging free of charge from trade and craft businesses and recycles it in a resource-saving manner. Interseroh draws on over 25 years of experience and a network of around 600 certified disposal partners. In this way, RIGIPS takes sustainable responsibility for resource conservation and climate protection. In 2020, the recycling of RIGIPS packaging materials saved 1,519 tons of resources and an additional 199 tons of greenhouse gases. This reduces raw material consumption and emissions, avoids disposal processes, and relieves the environment multiple times.

The Interseroh service team can be reached at +49 2203 9147-1500 or via the website interseroh.de.
Information sheet on the disposal of transport packaging
Form for the disposal of transport packaging

Exemplary from loading to delivery

Image

Of course, we also pay special attention to logistics to meet our principles of sustainable action. We are aware that the entire logistics chain offers great optimisation potential to advance the reduction of emissions. Therefore, we place special emphasis on ensuring that our fleet meets the Euro Class 6 standard. Additionally, where feasible, we use low-emission shipping of our products by rail and, if necessary, by ship.

With Mobile Order Management (MOM), we use another tool for optimised resource use. Through this logistics tool, we inform our customers in real-time about the exact delivery time of the ordered goods at the construction site, helping to optimise processes on-site.

Transport safety is also a key aspect. Here, RIGIPS has contributed significantly to the development of a binding guideline within a cross-company working group, which today defines the standard for optimally secured loads as a DEKRA certificate. This know-how is not only used internally but also benefits our customers, e.g., through special seminars and in-house training.

Building on safety and trust in every respect

Image

One of our core principles is to provide maximum safety for professionals and builders during execution. With tested complete solutions, we ensure optimal results.

Rigips lightweight systems offer a range of advantages over conventional construction methods. Rigips products, due to their lower mass and weight, place significantly fewer demands on building statics. Floor plans can therefore be planned and built largely independently of the supporting building structure, offering high flexibility and adaptability.

An argument that is particularly compelling from an economic perspective is the fast and efficient construction method of Rigips lightweight systems, which, compared to solid construction, impresses with very short construction times and is significantly more sustainable, as shown in the life cycle assessment study!
Our construction site logistics also offer time advantages, with the central focus being optimal delivery synchronised with optimised on-site processes. Ideally, this means that, if necessary and feasible, we can deliver directly to the appropriate floor.

We provide personal on-site support from experienced technicians and targeted training to ensure optimal system selection and installation.

Creating comfortable living spaces and continuously reinventing them

Image

At RIGIPS, we believe that well-designed spaces equipped with a variety of amenities can enhance people's lives and well-being. This commitment drives us to continuously develop forward-thinking, sustainable construction solutions that prioritise maximum user comfort in all situations and for all needs.

Image

Our Multi-Comfort solutions enable carefree and safe living and efficient working. They impress with features such as healthier living, quietness, robustness, design freedom and long durability. Outstanding examples include Rigips Activ’Air for improving indoor air quality, Rigips Climafit Protekto for protecting against electromagnetic radiation and Rigips Habito, the first solid drywall board that allows you to easily attach loads without using dowels.

Learn more about this topic on the Healthy Living page

For us, the design of human living spaces and the preservation of natural habitats go hand in hand. Rather than seeing buildings at the end of their life cycle as the end of their use, we see them as a source of recyclable building materials that can be reused infinitely and sustainably through deconstruction and recycling. According to our belief in a closed production cycle, buildings are valuable sources of raw materials for the future.

Gypsum recycling at RIGIPS – achieving greater sustainability with EASY ECO

Image

Our supply of raw materials is based on three pillars: natural gypsum, REA gypsum and recycled gypsum. In 2017, we introduced our own concept for reprocessing gypsum as a building material. As part of the EASY ECO initiative, we now offer a comprehensive recycling service for construction site waste and the return of specific products after deconstruction.

All relevant information can be found at www.easy-eco.org.

Image