Task Group Circular Economy

TG-CE

 

FRAMEWORK CONDITIONS

The European Commission adopted the new circular economy action plan (CEAP) in March 2020. It is one of the main building blocks of the European Green Deal, Europe’s new agenda for sustainable growth.

Measures that will be introduced under the new action plan focus on the sectors that use most resources and where the potential for circularity is high such as: electronics and ICT, batteries and vehicles, packaging, plastics, textiles, construction and buildings, food, water and nutrients.

The new action plan announces initiatives along the entire life cycle of products. It targets how products are designed, promotes circular economy processes, encourages sustainable consumption, and aims to ensure that waste is prevented and the resources used are kept in the EU economy for as long as possible.

It introduces legislative and non-legislative measures targeting areas where action at the EU level brings real added value. Similar regulatory initiatives can be expected beyond the EU in the upcoming years.

Along public measures private sector instruments, such as green building rating schemes, are including circularity aspects into their assessment schemes.

 

THE ROLE OF ECO PLATFORM IN THE CONTEXT OF CIRCULAR ECONOMY

The Mission of ECO Platform is to promote and to contribute to the sustainable development, including a low-carbon economy and resource efficiency in the construction sector, by coordinating the development and provision of credible and scientifically correct data from products.

With the Buildings & Construction sector in focus of legislative and non-legislative measures, manufacturers of construction products will further align their business models with the principles of a circular economy. However, questions still remain on how to discern whether a product's materials align with circular values.

ECO Platform´s aim is to close this gap by

• providing a generally recognized/accepted method that helps construction products manufacturers to assess, how well their product’s/product materials align with circular economy principles of minimal waste and enhanced reuse value
• integrating verifiable circularity information into the Environmental Product Declaration (EPD), providing a more comprehensive and accurate picture of the overall sustainability credentials of a construction product.

By this ECO platform expects to provide a globally accepted standard for the circularity assessment of construction products, complying with the different international regulatory and non-regulatory (e.g. green building rating schemes) developments and requirements.

 

MANDATE FROM TEWOG TO TG-CE

• Development of a proposal for measuring/assessing the circularity of construction products (under consideration of existing/evolving public and private sector requirements as well as existing/evolving assessment methods).
• Organize and moderate a pilot for the assessment method with selected/interested construction products manufacturers and (if needed) recycling companies.
• Development of a proposal for the integration of circularity information into the EPD
• Development of information requirements and verification guidelines that allow the verification of the circularity information provided in the EPD