In December 2019, the European Commission presented the European Green Deal. This “deal” is actually a roadmap, aiming to make the European economy sustainable and climate neutral. In 2021, the European Parliament passed the Climate Law. This made the goal of reducing CO2 emissions to Net Zero by 2050 legally binding. 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, more in-depth agreements have been made by various industries. This includes the building and construction industry in which EPI Group operates with its cast floor systems.
The agreements for the Building and Construction Industry stem from the World Green Building Council and are an important guideline for us. 11% of total CO2 emissions in the building and construction industry come from the manufacture of building and construction materials.
From the EPI Group, we like to take a proactive role in this to ensure the reduction of the CO2 impact and then communicate about this in an honest and transparent way.
European regulations require us to comply with CE markings. This mark verifies 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.
With regard to environmental requirements, the Green Deal stipulates that producers must provide insight into the exact CO2 impact of all their products by means of an EPD (Environmental Product Declaration). The agreements of the World Green Building Counsil state the goal that by 2025 all producers in the sector will have EPDs available. This agreement is not binding at this time. However, when projects are built 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. With our colleagues in Denmark, we already see that new projects are built only with 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 become the norm in other European countries in the relatively near future. Eventually, we believe that a validated EPD will become part of the European Construction Products Regulation.
To arrive at an EPD, a comprehensive LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) report for all of our products has been prepared. From this calculation follows an analysis, which reports the CO2 impact. Our LCA and EPDs have been produced in collaboration with EcoChain compiled and we have had it validated by EcoReview as an independent third party. Currently, we see in the cast floor systems market that most EPDs are calculated on a single kilogram basis and this does not include the entire floor construction, but only the top layer, for example. In our view, this is not complete because a cast floor consists of multiple layers. Several products are applied in different proportions per layer and these cannot be reported in kilograms. Let alone that they can be recycled separately at the end of the LCA. When the reporting is based on square meters, which does include all this, it gives a more realistic picture of the actual CO2 impact. By taking this approach, EPI has already and gone a step further than currently required. In addition to product-specific EPDs, we have also developed EPDs based on our entire floor systems and calculated the CO2 impact based on square meters. This makes it easier for companies operating in the sector to work with accurate LCA data and CO2 reports. This will ultimately start to contribute to reducing CO2 impact.
The EPDs are particularly relevant for anyone active in the building and construction sector, such as 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 helps to meet these requirements and make the right choices.
