In December 2019, the European Commission presented the European Green Deal. This so-called deal is actually a roadmap that aims to make the European economy sustainable and climate neutral. In 2021, the European Parliament passed the European Climate Law. This law makes the target of reducing CO2 emissions to net zero by 2050 legally binding. In order to track progress, interim targets have been set, the most important of which is to reduce CO2 emissions by at least 55% by 2030. To achieve this reduction, in-depth agreements have been made within various industries. So too for the building and construction industry, in which the EPI Group operates with its seamless resin flooring systems.
The agreements for the building and construction industry stem from the World Green Building Council and are an important guideline for us. Eleven percent of the total CO2 emissions in the building and construction industry are the result of manufacturing building and construction materials.
As the EPI Group, we would like to take a proactive role in this to ensure the reduction of CO2 emissions and subsequently communicate about this reduction in an honest and transparent way.
European regulations require us to comply with CE quality labels. These labels verify that the product complies with European legislation on health, safety, performance and environmental requirements. Our entire product portfolio is CE-marked and complies with the NEN-ISO 9001 and NEN-ISO 1400 standards.
In the area of environmental requirements, it has been agreed in the Green Deal that producers should transparently report the exact CO2-impact of all their products through an EPD (Environmental Product Declaration). As laid out in agreements set by the World Green Building Council, the goal is for all manufacturers in the industry to have published their EPDs by 2025. This goal is not currently binding. However, when projects are constructed according to sustainability assessment methods, such as BREEAM or DGNB, EPDs are necessary to assess whether the project falls within the set values and can therefore be certified. Among our colleagues in Denmark, we have already noticed that new projects are constructed only using suppliers who can provide an externally validated EPD report in which the product meets the maximum emission requirements according to the chosen method. This will also start to become the norm in other European countries in the relatively near future. Eventually, we think a validated EPD will become part of Construction Products Regulation (CPR).
From Life Cycle Assessment to EPD
To arrive at an EPD, a comprehensive LCA (life cycle assessment) report has been prepared for all our products. This calculation leads to an analysis reporting the CO2 impact. Our LCAs and EPDs have been compiled in collaboration with EcoChain and we have had them validated by EcoReview as an independent third party. Currently, in the (seamless) resin floor systems market, we have noticed that most EPDs are kilogram-based and often do not include the entire floor structure (e.g. only the top layer). In our view, this is incomplete because a screed floor consists of several layers and several products are mixed per layer, for which the ratio cannot be reported in kilograms, let alone recycled separately at the end of the LCA. If the reporting were to be on a square-metre basis that did include all of this, it would give a more realistic picture of the actual CO2-impact. This approach has already enabled the EPI Group to go one step further than currently required. Besides product-specific EPDs, we have also developed EPDs based on our complete floor systems and CO2-impact based on square metres. This makes it easier for companies operating in the sector to work with accurate LCA data and CO2-impact reports. This will eventually contribute to reducing CO2-impact.
Transparent EPD reporting important for building and construction sector
EPDs are particularly relevant to anyone working in the building and construction sector, especially architects, designers, contractors, property developers, property managers and government agencies. Sustainability requirements and assessment methods are becoming increasingly stringent, and externally validated and reliable reporting contributes to meeting these requirements and making the right choices.
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