DERIX Enters Emissions Trading
1,169 Carbon Credits in the Account


Airship Hangar Mülheim: 1,169 CO₂ Certificates for approx. 1,500 cubic meters of installed wood

The DERIX Group is an expert in the production of high-quality timber structures. The company recognized early on the need to make the construction industry more sustainable and circular – and utilizes the opportunities that the natural raw material wood, with its excellent climate balance, offers. The goal of the DERIX Group is to advance and establish circular economy and climate protection. For years, the company has been a pioneer in this field, for example with its general obligation to take back used DERIX timber components or its use of bio-based adhesive. The DERIX Group has been a climate-neutral company since 2023.

Now DERIX is taking another big step towards the future: As the first company in the industry, DERIX is now entering emissions trading and is having CO₂ certificates created for the considerable amounts of CO₂ stored in its timber components. This enables DERIX to make its contribution to climate protection monetarily usable.

For the entire timber construction industry, this means: The ecological arguments of the building material can now be complemented by an additional economic advantage.

CO₂ certificates (also called Carbon Credits) serve as tradable certificates for the compensation of greenhouse gases. The goal of this concept is to also provide companies with monetary incentives for emission reduction – those who emit little have to pay little. Those who even store certified CO₂ in building constructions and thus remove it from the atmosphere can further sell the bound CO₂ amounts as “Carbon Removal Credits”.

Currently, this concept is still voluntary for the majority of companies – energy-intensive industries, however, must already comply with the emission limits set by the EU and purchase CO₂ certificates from the EU if they exceed them. From 2027, this will be extended to the areas of buildings and road traffic. Currently, only EU certificates can be traded in this mandatory system of CO₂ emission limits and emissions trading. However, a concept for the inclusion of Carbon Removal Credits is expected here as early as 2026*. Thus, it can be assumed that the use and value of CO₂ certificates will increase in the future, as more and more companies will have to offset their emissions through certificates.

“The DERIX Group welcomes the introduction of CO₂ emissions trading, as it supports the appeal to companies to make their production climate-friendly and circular through economic incentives,” explains Markus Steppler, Managing Director at the DERIX Group. “And this is urgently needed if we want to achieve our climate protection goals in Europe,” Steppler continues.

Pilot Project Airship Hangar Mülheim

The airship hangar in Mülheim marks the beginning of the CO₂ certification process at DERIX. The DERIX timber construction of this building stores 1,169 tons of CO₂.

For the creation of their CO₂ certificates, the DERIX Group collaborates with the independent certification platform Oncra, which, as the world’s first provider, generates bio-based CO2 Removal Credits for the storage of CO₂ in building constructions and works with local governments and the EU Commission. For the airship hangar, Oncra created 1,169 Carbon Credits for the DERIX Group, which the DERIX Group can now trade:

The Oncra platform was launched by the Climate Cleanup Foundation, a non-profit organization from the Netherlands. “Our goal is to stop climate change by re-storing carbon from the atmosphere. CO₂ certificates that we create on the Oncra platform and make accessible for trading give stored CO₂ a monetary value. This increases awareness for responsible handling of CO₂ and offers a glimpse into the near future, where strict emission reduction and trading will be commonplace,” explains Sacha Brons, Head of Construction Stored Carbon at Climate Cleanup.

The DERIX Group is already looking forward to the implementation of binding EU regulations, as their CO₂ certificates will then gain even greater relevance. “The DERIX Group can certify more than 50,000 cubic meters of wood annually,” says Antonia Görg, Sustainability Manager at the DERIX-Group. “This corresponds to approx. 38,000 Carbon Credits (CO₂ certificates), which are then freely tradable. If interested, DERIX customers can also acquire the CO₂ certificates when purchasing their constructions and then use them for themselves. In the Netherlands, some DERIX customers have already done so and are represented with their Carbon Credits on Oncra,” Görg continues.
Currently, two large and particularly innovative construction projects made of DERIX wood have created their CO₂ certificates at Oncra and deposited them on the platform:

Houtlab
Owner of the Carbon Credits: Woody Builders

SAWA
Owner of the Carbon Credits: Association of home owners (Vereniging van Eigenaren)

Further information on the topic of Carbon Credits, emissions trading, and the generation of CO₂ certificates can be found in our DERIX leaflet “Carbon Credits“.