Dear Reader,

ECO Platform Meeting in Stockholm

Our Board met in Stockholm on April 1 and 2 for preparing the General Assembly and some strategic issues in depth. Next to ISO and CEN developments and political developments, ECO Platform's role in a digital future was discussed.

Since overlaps with the InData Group in developing a common digital format and offering solutions for the digital data exchange of EPD data are obvious, our Board Meeting was aligned with the InData Group meeting, which took place in the same location on April 2 and 3 to ensure a good mutual insight on the work of our initiatives as well as an effective exchange and alignment of activities to achieve common goals.

The amendment of ECO Platform's strategy with regards to digital data exchange will be subject of our General Assembly on May 14 in Brussels.

ECO Platform liaison with European standardization (CEN/TC 350)

Since 2015 ECO Platform is a liaison organization of the technical committee CEN/TC 350 (Sustainability of construction works) within the European Committee for Standardization. This liaison gives ECO Platform the opportunity to collaborate and work with CEN/TC 350 on the European EPD-standard EN 15804.

ECO Platform has nominated Mr. Dr. Frank Werner as delegate. With this newsletter we would like to introduce Frank Werner to you and give you an insight in some relevant activities of CEN/TC 350.

Dr. Frank Werner is an expert in the field of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and EPDs with many-years of experiences:

• studies of environmental natural sciences and doctorate at the Swiss Federal Polytechnical University ETH Zurich,
• around 25 years of development and experiences in Life Cycle Assessment in the construction sector,
• since 2003 he has been running his own environmental consultancy with emphasis on Life Cycle Assessment and sustainable resource management in the construction sector; within this context he also elaborates environmental production declarations; besides this he is an approved verifier of EPDs in the French (INIES) and in the German (IBU) EPD program,
• since 2004 he has been a member of the IBU advisory board (formally AUB advisory board), which he has been chairing since 2017,
• since 2006 he has been an active member of the CEN/TC 350 working groups WG1 and WG3 and has contributed substantially to the elaboration of EN 15804 and EN 15978.

Amendment to EN 15804 ready for final vote

CEN/TC 350 will send the amendment of EN 15804 for formal vote in the coming weeks. After a positive final vote, a publication in summer is expected. ECO Platform and its members are now beginning to plan for the necessary steps after the publication of the amended standard, especially with regards to the "Date of Withdrawal "(DOW) of three years, resulting in a long duration in which EPD of both, old and new standard, are valid in parallel.

The modifications of the standard concern mainly:

• With only few exceptions all construction products and materials shall declare the end of life modules (C1-C4 and module D).
• Changes and amendments for the declaration of the mandatory impact categories (e.g. water scarcity instead of fresh water). All characterization factors will be given and updated by the EU Commission. The total global warming potential (GWP-total) is now the sum of three sub-categories of climate change:

1. fossil global warming potential (GWP fossil),
   
   
2. biogenic global warming potential (GWP biogenic) and
   
   
3. land use and land use change global warming potential (GWP luluc)

• Additional environmental impact indicators shall be included in the project report and can be declared in the EPD. The new impact categories are: particulate matter emissions, ionizing radiation, eco-toxicity (freshwater), human toxicity (cancer and non-cancer effects), land use related impacts and soil quality.
• There are some new requirements for the declaration of biogenic carbon content for products and packaging materials.
• A normative annex is amended including schemes to be applied for data quality assessment of generic and specific data and the ILCD format shall be used for inventory data.

ECO Platform General Assembly

In the next days all members of ECO Platform are going to receive their invitation to our General Assembly 2019, in the afternoon of May 14 in Brussels.

As in the last years, we invite all members for an open Board Meeting in the morning of the same day. Whereas the General Assembly will have to follow a formal procedure, the Board Meeting leaves more room for explanations and discussions, especially on the driving strategic matters.

Dates & Events

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 is asked to co-host a session on EPD during the event. Preparations are ongoing.
Furthermore, it is intended to hold an open Board Meeting before the event on September 11. More information will be given with our next newsletter and on our homepage. All members of ECO Platform will receive a formal invitation.

Beyond 2020, on June 9 - 11, 2020 in Gothenburg, Sweden
For this international conference in Sweden in 2020, ECO Platform considers to participate and contribute together with the InData Group in a joint session.

c/o Construction Products Europe AISBL
Boulevard du Souverain 68, Box 1
1170 Bruxelles
Belgium

phone: +49 201 - 3203172
info@eco-platform.org
www.eco-platform.org

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