Environmental and health related criteria for buildings - ANEC

IBO - Environmental and Health related Criteria for Buildings
Ecolabels for building products
Ecolabels are voluntary schemes to encourage businesses to market products and services
that are kinder to the environment than other one. Products and services awarded an
ecolabel carry a logo, allowing consumers to identify them easily. On the other side it helps
manufacturers, retailers and service providers to gain recognition for good standards. While
the logo may be simple, the environmental criteria behind it are rather complicated in most
cases considering the impact of the product or service on the environment throughout its lifecycle.
The criteria should be based on a consultation with experts and all interested parties.
The International Standards Organisation has provided a standard with requirements for an
ecolabelling scheme (ISO 14024). This standard includes the following key criteria:
- the reliability of information (i.e. are there adequate procedures in place for validation and
compliance monitoring?);
- the transparency of the administrative procedures of the scheme;
- the existence of a formal process of consultation with stakeholders.
EU Eco-Label and governmental national ecolabels
The European Union established its voluntary ecolabel award scheme in 1992. The EU Eco-
Label is intended to promote products with a reduced environmental impact during their
entire life cycle and to provide consumers with accurate, non-deceptive, science-based
information on the environmental impact of products. It is part of a broader action plan on
Sustainable Consumption and Production and Sustainable Industrial Policy adopted by the
Commission on 16 July 2008. The initiative for an EU Eco-label award scheme for Buildings
has already been mentioned several times in this report.
Beside the EU Ecolabel plenty of national ecolabels still exist, e.g. German Ecolabel (“Blue
Angel”), Austrian Ecolabel (“Hundertwasserzeichen”) or Nordic Ecolabel (“Nordic Swan”).
natureplus and non-governmental Ecolabels
natureplus is an international ecolabel for sustainable building and accommodation products
uniting the leading non-governmental ecolabels for building products in Europe. It is carried
by a private association involving all groups interested in building processes. The naturepluslabel
embodies health-awareness, environmental soundness and technical performance of
the tested products. Products with this label are made predominantly from renewable and
sustainable sources of raw materials. Testing methods cover life cycle assessment,
laboratory analysis of ingredients and emissions, visits to the production facilities and
compliance test. Comparable to the ecolabels from the government, plenty of private national
ecolabels exist.
Table 22 gives an overview about the mentioned ecolabels.
Final Report 134 31 03 2011