Strong legal requirements for environmental sustainability should be set now for all construction products – ECOS feedback to Commission roadmap
ECOS provided feedback to the European Commission, advocating for environmental sustainability requirements to be a central part of the revision of the Construction Products Regulation (CPR), now under consultation.
The Construction Products Regulation (CPR) is supposed to support a fully functioning Single Market for construction products and help address sustainability issues, but it is currently failing to deliver effectively on both objectives. Now the European Commission has an opportunity to change the course of this regulation.
DG GROW officials have put a few promising options for revision on the table, but ECOS believes the revised CPR must go beyond. As part of our answer to their call for feedback, we call on the Commission to establish ambitious environmental performance requirements throughout the lifecycle for all construction products.
In our proposal, rules for construction products would follow a similar logic to the Ecodesign Directive, that applies to a wide range of home appliances and ICT devices, but with greater focus on embodied environmental impacts, for example CO2 emissions generated at the production stage.
The Ecodesign Directive has achieved significant results by setting technical specifications to measure, test and verify performance in product-specific regulations, in conjunction with EU harmonised standards. Construction products would become more environmentally sustainable if similar rules were applied to them.
Our contribution also included technical feedback on a set of detailed indicative options referred to within the roadmap emphasising the needs to change the current framework and tools to support commitments of the European Green Deal.
The Commission has now launched a public consultation, due to close on 25 December, with the content of the legislative proposal scheduled for the autumn of 2021 hanging in the balance. ECOS will continue to advocate for an ambitious legislative proposal that will support a more sustainable built environment.
Those interested in learning more and discussing this topic further are invited to register for our upcoming online conference on 29 September on ‘Circularity in Construction’.
