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The Qualitätssiegel Nachhaltiges Gebäude is a state-quality seal for buildings. The prerequisite for the award of the quality seal is proof of the fulfillment of general and special requirements for the ecological, socio-cultural and economic quality of buildings.
The quality seal is awarded by independent bodies on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Construction after certification. The quality seal is awarded in the requirement level 'PLUS' or 'PREMIUM'. These quality seal levels carry specific set benchmarks for residential buildings:
QNG-PLUS is awarded in cases where CO2e/(m2*year) is no higher than 24kg CO2e/(m2*year) and the calculated non-renewable primary energy requirement of the building is no higher than 96 kWh/(m2*year).
QNG-PREMIUM is awarded in cases where the CO2e/(m2*year) is no higher than 20kg CO2e/(m2*year) and the non-renewable primary energy requirement of the building is no higher than 64 kWh/(m2*year).
For non-residential buildings, the benchmarks are determined on a project-specific basis, as detailed in Annex 3 of the QNG manual.
The included building elements include, among other things, the building parts from Kostgruppen (KG) 300 according to DIN 276 (2018) as well as defined building systems of KG 400. Outdoor components according to KG 500 are to be taken into account if they are absolutely necessary to maintain building operations.
All building materials with a share of more than 1% of the total mass of the building, more than 1% of the primary energy consumption (non-renewable) or more than 1% of GWP100 must be taken into account.
The sum of the neglected building materials must not exceed 5% of the mass of the building, the primary energy consumption (non-renewable) or GWP100.
Small parts processed on-site or in a factory (e.g. nails, dowels, screws) and product-specific small quantities (≤ 1kg) may be neglected.
Create a Project
Create a building project and select the ' LCA for Qualitätssiegel Nachhaltiges Gebäude (QNG)' tool as the chosen calculation tool.
Create Your First design and Select LCA Parameters
Ensure that the 'Product specific service life' is selected for the default service life value.
Mandatory Scope
The scope can be found above or in the guidance directly.
Calculation Period
Set the calculation period to 50 years by opening the ‘Calculation Period’ tab and inputting 50 years.
Building Area
Fill in the Building area question form by entering the appropriate area in 'Netto-Raumfläche, NRF'.
Building Materials
Fill in your project information in One Click LCA by entering the design either manually or by importing your data (see different import options here; guidance for data import can be found here). If you need help finding the right datasets for your building materials, check our guidance pages here and here.
Only generic QNG data ("Rechenwerte") is available in this tool. The tool also includes base amounts ("Sockelbeträge") for building technology under the 'HVAC components and equipment' material category which users should select based on the requirement level ('PLUS' or 'PREMIUM'), the building's energy performance and the building's type (defined by classes K1 to K6 which can be found in the QNG guidance). These should be used in conjunction with the building technology equipment that will actually be installed.
Energy consumption
Input energy as required by calculation scope for one year. This value will be multiplied by the calculation period for full-lifecycle results.
In the QNG calculation, energy is divided into three subclasses:
B6.1 - This is regulated energy consumption (required for all building types, input in kWh)
B6.2 - This is the unregulated energy consumption for the operation of the building, e.g. elevators (excluded from residential buildings)
B6.3 - This is a default value for the energy consumption of users, taken from default values in kWh/(m2*year) per usage type (required for all building types, input per m2 of usage type).
The total B6.1 values for consumed energy are calculated using the GEG model. This includes the loads from heating, cooling, ventilation, dehumidification and humidification of the building according to the planned fabric condition of the envelope, the planned building services and the planned zonal conditioning.
For B6.2 and B6.3, these can be selected from the resources in the query which compute impacts per m2 of NRF.
These rows should be added as separate inputs and then marked appropriately using the 'Kostengruppen' options to refer to the respective B6 subclass.
For self-generated and self-used energy: The B6 emissions are not included in the calculations, as long as the embodied carbon of the system is proportionately considered (e.g. 40% of embodied carbon if 40% of the energy produced is used for the building). Embodied carbon connected to the energy that is fed into the grid is not taken into account. The benefits of the sold energy are represented in D2.
Input used refrigerants
You can add resources for refrigerants in the Emissions and Removals query.
The QNG guidance specifies that refrigerants do not have to be reported if they are natural or classified as future-proof until 2030 (based on a document issued by the Federal Ministry for the Environement, Nature Conservation, Nuclarar Saftery and Consumer Protection). The source docemnt for this is "3.3 Special calculation rule F gases to the LCA accounting rules of the QNG" (see here).
Save the inputs and proceed by entering information about your reference building into the ‘Reference values’ question form.
Reference Values
To calculate the reference building's performance, add the resource(s) suitable for your building type in the tab ‘Reference values’.
For residential buildings, input the NRF for the resource 'Reference value for DGNB 2023/QNG, Residential building' in the first section of the ‘Reference values’ tab.
For non-residential buildings, the reference building's performance is based on various parts:
For the aspect that concerns Kostengruppen 300 and 400, input the NRF for the resource that matches the LCA class of your building. This can be found in section 1 of the ‘Reference values’ tab.
To represent the top-up factor for A1-A3, B4, and C3-C4 of PV systems, the respective resources for the roof area may be used. There are many with different self-usage shares. The QNG mentions 40% for the ones without battery storage (page 14) and in the case of determining the pro rata requirement value (page 11).
Concerning B6.1, the resource 'Utilization - 1 kWh national grid electricity mix - QNG', which can be found in section 2, is used to input the energy usage for this category (in kWh). The QNG rules for the determination of the reference value for non-residential buildings provide guidance on how to calculate this kWh value. Please note that the kWh value to be entered for B6.1 must first be reduced by the corresponding reduction factor (see Table 11, Annex 3.2.1.2 to the ANNEX).
Regarding B6.2, resources for central services and elevators can be found in section 2 of the 'Reference values' tab. For elevators check the QNG guidance on the reference values for non-residential buildings (table 13 and 14) to see what category of elevators the building has and choose the appropriate resources.
For representing B6.3, you can find the values for usage for various zones in section 2 and input them per NRF.
Be sure to add the classification of B6.1., B6.2 and B6.3 respectively in the column with the header "Kostengruppe", otherwise no values will show in the results table for these sections.
For non-residential buildings, the proportional share per its self-usage percentage of embodied carbon from energy generation plants needs to be considered as part of the reference building calculation.
For this purpose, the kW(peak) must be defined over the roof area and multiplied by the self-consumption share of the system in order to obtain values for GWP100 and primary energy. When determining the proportional demand value, the self-consumption share of 40% should be taken into account. To perform this calculation in the tool,
in the first section of the “Reference values” tab, select the resource “Photovoltaic system per m2 roof area, self-consumption rate 40%” from
enter the roof area you have
the software automatically calculates the kW(peak), the self-consumed part of it and the associated GWP100 and primary energy values.
Results
The results summary table is used to report the impacts as per the QNG guidance (see page 20 for residential guidance and page 26 for non-residential building guidance).
The rows concerning the Fulfillment of QNG-PLUS and QNG-PREMIUM show 1 if they are achieved, and 0 if they aren't.