SCALE is a member of the Carbon Concrete Composite e.V. association

The most commonly used material, steel-reinforced concrete, is associated with high levels of primary energy input, CO2 output and resource consumption, and despite this has a limited lifespan of just 40 to 80 years.

This poses a safety risk for many types of structures as is most notably being seen in a growing number of bridges. Many of the 120,000 or so bridges in Germany are only 40 to 50 years old. Detours and traffic jams due to full or partial bridge closures are costing the German economy an estimated two million euros each year. Such short lifespans and the consequences in terms of cost are unacceptable and cannot be borne over the long term.

This means that we have a lot of repair work to do on many of our structures, both right away and well into the future. Paraphrasing Georg Christoph Lichtenberg all we can say is: If things are to get better, the way we build will have to change.