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Dear Reader,
Just before summer-break and vacation time, we would like to give you our latest update on ECO Platform.
Our Board welcomes Dr. Alexander Roeder as a new Director. Alexander is taking the vacant seat of Burkhart Lehmann and at the same time the function of the Treasurer.
ECO Platform's Board of Directors
From left to right: Hakon Hauan, Christian Donath (Managing Director), Sven-Olof Ryding, Marc Bosmans, Eva Schmincke, Aitor Aragon, Alexander Roeder
ECO Platform General Assembly 2019 in Brussels
Our General Assembly took place on May 14 in Brussels. Please follow this link to the download-area on our homepage for the minutes, presentations and attached documents.
Furthermore, you will find a photo-gallery there.
During the Assembly we heard many facts about added-value, developments and the use of EPD. Jane Anderson and Christian Donath will continue to inform you about the single issues in more detail over the next newsletters.
The Value of EPD – Jane Anderson
As set out in my presentation at the General Assembly earlier this year, we see that there is much added value provided by ECO Platform EPD, for example through mutual recognition, the increased data quality provided by ECO Platform verification procedures and audits, the digitalisation of EPD, and the benefit that the increased numbers of EN 15804 EPD, shown in Figure 1, provides for benchmarking and product selection. These benefits mean there are increasing areas where the value of EPD can be exploited. We have identified five key areas of added value offered by EPD:
- Regulation – EPD have been used in Regulation in France since 2012, and in Belgium since 2015, to ensure that environmental claims about construction products are supported by EPD registered with the National Programmes. Together with the recent pilot French legislation, E+C- mentioned below, this has seen a massive growth in the numbers of FDES and PEP Ecopassport to over 3000 today.
- Procurement – EPD are cited in Italian Green Public Procurement legislation to provide evidence of recycled content, as minimum values are set at building level and in California they are used to ensure that key products (steel, insulation, gypsum) procured by the Federal government are within maximum values for GWP.
- Building Certification – European schemes such as BREEAM (UK, NO, ES), HQE (FR), VERDE (ES), ITACA (IT), HPI (IE) and IBO Ökopass (AU) all provide credits for using products with EPD. Outside of Europe, LEED (US), Greenstar (AUS/NZ) and GRIHA (IN) also provide credits for using products with EPD. In the US, the LEED EPD credit has driven growth of UL Environment EPD to nearly 1000 from 170 in 2014.
- Building LCA – Most building certification schemes now provide credits for undertaking an LCA of the Building. In Germany, new public buildings have had to undertake Building LCA as part of the BNB assessment since 2008, and in the Netherlands, it has been mandatory for all new housing, and office projects over 100m2 to undertake a Building LCA as part of the Building Act. In France, they are piloting the E+C- legislation requiring assessment of the LCA of new buildings alongside requirements to reduce operational energy and increase integrated renewable energy generation. Using EPD in these LCA assessments will enable savings from selecting products with lower environmental impact at the building level to be recognised. The digitalisation of EPD also means it is easier to ensure verified data for products is available to those undertaking Building LCA within tools, particularly those linking to BIM.
- Reporting – Large Developers and Contractors are under increasing pressure to report their Greenhouse Gas emissions, for example through GRESB or the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), and to reduce their emissions, for example using science-based targets. Increasingly they are finding that the major source of their impacts is from the materials used in the construction of buildings, and they are therefore starting to focus on asking for EPD and measuring the embodied carbon for which they are responsible.
Figure 1: The growth of EN 15804 EPD since 2011 ©ConstructionLCA Ltd 2019
Over the coming newsletters, we will be exploring each of these areas in more detail.
Dates & Events
General Assembly 2020
Our General Assembly 2020 will take place on May 19 at 14 CET at our official address Boulevard du Souverain 68 in 1170 Brussels.
Cities to Be
International Congress on September 12 and 13, 2019 in Angers, France
Our French ECO EPD Programme Operator Alliance HQE GBC is host of this impressive event in France this year. ECO Platform will co-host a session on EPD during the event.
Furthermore, an open Board Meeting will be held on September 11, 14-18 CET.
Please inform us about your attendance under the following link (https://framadate.org/PCybERN6etHFacoW)
For advice on travelling and accommodation, please refer to our homepage.
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Sven-Olof Ryding
Christian Donath