70th BetonTage: Markets for people

Dear readers, designing sustainable solutions for construction is more than ever the challenge of the coming years and decades. However, the focus is not only on ecological aspects – often narrowly discussed in terms of CO2 footprint as the sole criterion – but also on economic and social issues, which must not be pushed into the background of the discussion.

The reality of implementing ecological transformation has shown that ecological solutions always prevail when they are also driven by economic factors. Sheer altruism and an ideology of renunciation will not give rise to a mass movement toward more sustainable solutions.

Social sustainability is also becoming increasingly important: hundreds of thousands of affordable apartments are lacking in metropolitan areas, which has already created social tension and envy that could divide society.

The only way to counteract this is to create cost-conscious solutions quickly using durable construction methods: Prefabricated concrete components in slim dimensions offer the best solution here: eliminating housing deficits quickly, building more simply yet with high quality. To achieve this, the focus must return to people‘s needs. „Markets for people“ is therefore the motto of the industry‘s leading congress, the 70th BetonTage, which will take place from March 10 to 12 at the CCU Ulm. There, we will discuss sustainable projects with the entire construction value chain. This is a warm invitation to contribute your ideas and provide new impetus with your solutions.

Another highlight of the event will be the presentation of the Innovation Prize of Supplier Industry 2026 — you can already read about the first nine submissions from among numerous applications in this issue of BFT.