2012 PCR Stakeholder Workshop

Measuring sustainability in construction: Building coherent tools with Product Category Rules (PCRs)

INTRODUCTION

Today, it is no longer acceptable for a manufacturer to claim that its products are sustainable.  Transparent assessment and validation processes are now the norm with the Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) verified by qualified third party experts.

The use of EPDs is growing in the construction industry, both in the EU and internationally. This increase is being driven by both new legal requirements and voluntary schemes. Product Category Rules (PCRs) are the cornerstone on which we build our EPDs. PCRs provide guidance and rules for the collection of data, for the calculations and how this information should be presented.

Amongst the new legal requirements and voluntary schemes, CEN TC 350 has recently published a set of standards for the measurement of environmental impacts of construction products and whole buildings across the entire lifecycle. Some Member States and regions have developed their own EPDs schemes; others ask for a calculation of sustainability whilst EPDs cannot be drafted based on harmonized product standards. There are competing sources of data available and, last but not least, the EC is developing new environmental foot printing methodologies.

In theory, the level playing-field provided by PCRs enables comparability between different EPDs and provide reliable Life Cycle Assessment information for both manufacturers and purchasers. However, amongst the plethora of initiatives and requirements, there is now an urgent need to build a credible, transparent, and efficient infrastructure to support Life Cycle Assessment in the EU.

OBJECTIVES

In this half-day workshop, participants will explore activities already underway in the development of PCRs and EPDs and discuss the road ahead. Specifically, participants will be informed of the lasted developments that have taken place in certain Member States, in standardisation and at company level. Concerning EU policy, participants will discuss how EPDs may be used to drive the EU resource efficiency policy. More so, the foreseen Environmental Footprint of Products methodology will be presented and comments noted in order to respond to the on-going EC consultation on delivering more sustainable consumption and production. Finally, the workshop will close with a set of recommendations for continued PCR development.

WHO ATTENDED

This workshop was attended by EU officials from DG ENV, DG ENTR and the JRC, manufacturers, trade associations representatives, CEN officials, life cycle assessment practitioners, construction product distributers and architects. 

presentations

Six presentations were made during the workshop, one by Mr Pavel Misiga, followed by Mr Eric Gravier, Mrs Anita Ory, Mr David Pennington, Mr Roland Hischier, Mr Johannes Kreissig and Mr Chris Hamans. Numerous questions were asked and a brief summary can be found here. As this workshop was the starting point of a necessary process, the participants made recommendations for the next steps and Tiles & Bricks Europe is please to have helped set the scene for the next rounds of debate and exchange.

Check out the pictures and the album.

Thank you again to the speakers for a very successful event.

2011 Resource Efficiency & Standardisation

On Tuesday 13 December 2011, CEN and CENELEC organised a workshop in Brussels on "How to do more with less, standards for a resource efficient Europe". One of the main speakers was Mr Pavel Misiga, Head of Sustainable Consumption and Production, DG Environment. After the key note speakers, the participants were invited to take part in interactive sessions on industry examples and best practices in resource efficiency, standardisation experience and lessons learned on topics such as Ecodesign, Life Cycle Assessment and many others. One of the group discussions was chaired by Christophe Sykes who then reported back to the plenary.

The presentations can be found here.

The report outlining the major outcomes of the discussions held in the various groups should be available within 6 to 8 weeks.

2011 European Parliament Ceramics Forum (EPCF)

In view of the expected Communication on the sustainable competitiveness of the construction sector and its enterprises, our President, Dr Heimo Scheuch, presented the views of the industry at the European Parliament Ceramics Forum (EPCF) on 23 November 2011. The EPCF is a cross-party discussion group that facilitates dialogue between the EU institutions and the ceramic industry. It is currently co-chaired by UK MEPs Malcolm Harbour and Michael Cashman. 

Mr Antonio Paparella, Socio-Economic Analyst from the EC (DG ENTR), presented the principle ideas that could be included in the EC Communication, once it is finalised with publication expected during the first quarter of 2012. The presentation of Dr Scheuch can be found here.

For more information on the EPCF visit www.epceramicsforum.eu

2011 TBE Congress, Cyprus

Our 2011 TBE Congress took place in Cyprus on 29 and 30 September. Our members and guests arrived at Le Méridien Limassol to be welcome on Wednesday evening with a buffet by the pool and with live music. The Executive Committee members gathered on Thursday morning and this meeting was followed by a well attended the General Assembly in the afternoon. On this occasion our Executive Committee was unanimously elected for three years, Mr Maliouris was elected as Vice-President and Dr Scheuch was re-elected as President. Dr Scheuch took the opportunity to thank our hosts, the Cyprus Ceramic Association, and the members for their continuous support and involvement in difficult economical conditions.

The day closed with the visit to a brick factory and a meze dinner accompanied by traditional dancing. The technical meeting for our combined masonry and roof tile expert groups took part on Friday, closing the event with lunch under the Mediterranean sun.

One of our guests, Mr Philippe Penillard, Chairman of Cleia, stated that he had been unaware of the quality of our annual meetings and so he had hesitated before signing up. At the close of the event he said it would have been an unforgivable mistake to have missed it and asked to be kept on the guest list.

Next year we will meet in the European Parliament in Brussels.

2011 Sustainable Buildings Conference, Helsinki

After Tokyo and Melbourne in 2005 and 2008, the TBE roadshow moved to Helsinki for the 2011 edition of the world Sustainable Building (SB) Conference. This event is the peak gathering of the world’s leading technical experts and researchers on sustainable built environments. Therefore, TBE looked to bring together international partners and our invitation was accepted by the Australian, Brazilian, North American, South African and Russian brick producers association.

The conference took place between 18 to 21 October. With the 310 presentations, 200 posters, 1020 participants from 51 countries, it was a resounding success. The key themes were resources efficiency, well-being in urban environment, business models, eco-efficiency, regulations and standardisation. Last but not least, two of our sustainable construction experts, Gerhard Koch (AT) and Arie Mooiman (NL) were selected by the scientific committee to present their papers. Both presentations were well attended and the papers were well received.

Barcelona will host the next edition in October 2014 (SB14). It will have as its theme as “Results in Sustainable Building: Are we moving as fast as we should?”. The Spanish proposal was presented by Green Building Council Spain. The program will also include the challenge of achieving more affordable accommodation in differing environments, especially in emerging countries, reducing the environmental footprint (energy and climate) and promoting a new model of sustainable economic activity and employment.