KfW - construction: is it necessary or not?

Strictly according to the Bible or was that in the construction description?? "You shall recognize them by their deeds" -

I completely agree with you.
It is absolutely not the case that everything runs perfectly with us either, on the contrary. But when building the house, it was simply important to us. I am repeating myself here, but: I do not condemn if someone else sets different priorities when building a house. You do NOT have to build according to KfW standards at all. You do it if it is important to you. Or you don’t. But I find it stupid to hide behind flimsy arguments or to relativize.

It’s like if I ask, "Do I have to buy meat from an organic farm?" – no, I don’t have to. I can also refrain from it. I can also come up with a thousand arguments why eating meat is bad in one way or another overall and why it therefore makes no sense to eat organic meat and why, in the end, to save money, because it’s bad anyway, I should get the cheap meat.
But in the end, that does not change the fact that organic meat is ecologically superior to industrial livestock farming, if in doubt.

Unfortunately, I also experience that these "eco stickers" (see above) are gladly used as a free pass for all kinds of things. Whenever someone really lives this consistently, I mean truly consistently, I have the utmost respect for them. Unfortunately, I see too many Alnatura shoppers in SUVs, eating pineapples or stylish food products from all over the world while on vacation in Costa Rica......

Unfortunately, that is true. On the other hand, would nature be better off if the same person, besides their SUV, pineapples, and long-distance vacations, also had an unecological house and used brown coal electricity? So just because someone preaches water and drinks wine does not mean that their sermon is a lie. Which in turn does not mean that it is not a lie – only that the conclusion from hypocrisy to the (un)truth of a statement cannot be drawn. Low-emission energy generation and production should, by the way, not only be pursued out of a connection to nature but also out of pure self-preservation instinct.

[...] and I think there is a reason why one thing is funded and the other is not.

I would be very cautious with that argument. There are almost even more influences at play here than when considering the life cycle assessment of building materials and technology. Overall, I just want to advocate for toning down the black-and-white thinking a bit. Not everything that is funded by KfW & Co. is therefore automatically ecologically sensible or better.

We also have a heat pump because back in 2013, I saw the excessive dependence on Russia with gas, but the world is changing. Just as electricity is currently being hyped, it may be that gas experiences a resurgence in a few years because it can be produced in an environmentally friendly way through Power to Gas and transported much more easily from the wind turbines in the North Sea/Baltic Sea or via photovoltaic installations in the Sahara using the existing gas pipelines than electricity can through the power lines. Just imagine if everyone converts their houses and cars to electricity in the coming years. Where do you think the electricity will come from then? The good old lignite power plants currently standing by as reserves will be restarted. Not to mention that our power lines are not designed for that.

Overall, I just want to advocate here for toning down black-and-white thinking a bit. Not everything that is funded by KfW&Co is therefore automatically ecologically sensible or better.

Exactly! We also shouldn’t forget that (understandably) construction is especially done according to KfW standards, because there is substantial cash from the government for that. I think this statistic would look different without these immense subsidies. Nevertheless, I consider it absolutely right to massively promote innovation and ecology, and I am immediately on board when something is objectively reasonable. I just have difficulties with these appealing labels from the sales shelves or the blatant handling of such terms. A little more attention and critical questioning of the entire package seems appropriate to me. Government funding is often also merely the result of persistent lobbying (see e.g. light bulbs) and therefore in itself is not a meaningful argument.

From an environmental perspective, it would probably make much more sense to invest significantly more in the renovation of old buildings rather than subsidizing Kfw 40 or 55. The effort to bring a house from 40 kWh/(m²a) to 30 kWh/(m²a) is likely just as expensive as bringing a house from 200 kWh/(m²a) to 80 kWh/(m²a). (see Pareto principle). However, there are probably fewer lobbyists for this.