bifa Umweltinstitut GmbH (Bifa)
bifa environmental institute GmbH (bifa) is an application-oriented environmental development and consulting institute located in Augsburg, Germany. We offer a wide range of services around environmental technologies. 40 employees develop individual solutions for national and international customers from all industries, associations and public authorities. bifa was founded in 1991. Our shareholders are the Free State of Bavaria (75 %), the City of Augsburg (12.5 %) and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry for Swabia (12.5 %). The annual turnover was around 3 million Euros in the year 2013.
Since it’s founding more than 700 projects have been processed. Our clients from the industry come from numerous sectors, e. g.: PV module manufacturers, IT manufacturers, ICT operators, lamp manufacturers, waste management companies, chemical industry, metal processing companies, utility companies, vehicle manufacturers, manufacturers of carbon fibres, paper industry, sporting goods manufacturers. This broad base provides us with a variety of insights into the practice of these industries.
From drawing up various cycle assessments (LCA) and eco efficiency analysis studies (LCA with additional cost calculation) bifa owns a wealth of experience (> 15 years) which allows a sound, efficient and professional handling of the investigation. Of particular advantage is that besides the LCA-knowledge bifa has another focus of work in the engineering field. We can therefore build on a combination of LCA and technical expertise for the proposed work. Furthermore bifa has tremendous experiences in the field of electronic and especially PV scrap treatment and recycling, which allows a professional investigation of recycling processes and crediting of environmental advantages from the high quality recycling.
bifa takes on the independent expert role for the execution of the eco efficiency analysis.
We are also using social science methods in close association with technical and scientific perspectives. The professional planning, implementation and evaluation of interviews and workshop processes is an everyday business for bifa. Since many years national and international policy advice has been an important topic of our work. bifa’s experience is asked for in the context of CDM or international waste management topics.
CV of persons who will primarily be involved in the project
Dr. Karsten Wambach, project manager at bifa since 1/2014 (male) currently works on study on PV waste aspects for IRENA, Recycling concepts for waste to energy plant ashes, consultancy of SMEs on energy and resource efficiency funded by the German resource efficiency agency (DEMEA).
Before that he worked as a freelance consultant on sustainable productions, environmental technology and waste concepts. Support of companies in sustainable production and recycling, (KPI’s, efficient material use, energy efficiency, LCA, training of personnel), CSR, stewardship programs, standardisation, R&D proposals, technical development of PV recycling plants (construction box solutions).
As managing director of Sunicon a subsidiary of Solarworld (2001-2012) he built up one of the biggest recycling companies for solar silicon dealing from primary silicon treatment to solar module recycling including upgrading of metallurgical silicon (research, business and strategic development, global sales and marketing of silicon and specialities (recycling of solar cells, module recycling, mechanical treatment of silicon, etching of silicon and wafers, technology scale up of new mass production technologies, solar and electronic grade silicon refining, characterisation), R&D (reduction of toxicity, new etching methods and recipes, metal, C, P and B removal, pyro-metallurgical treatment).
Matthias Seitz, researcher (male) is working at bifa since 2009. He graduated at the University of Augsburg in Business Administration focusing on environmental management, business information systems and optimization. He has already comprehensively dealt with LCAs, eco-efficiency analysis, as well as material and energy flow balances for industrial and public sector customers. From Aug 2011 to Dez 2013, he was instrumental in the creation of a comparative eco-efficiency analysis of photovoltaics. He is familiar with both the current production and recycling techniques for wafer-based and thin-film technologies and has insight into the underlying material and energy flow systems. At bifa Matthias also deals with the economic issues within LCAs and the economic considerations in process developments, in particular for material efficiency and recycling projects. In total he has 10 years of professional work experience.