Environmental and health related criteria for buildings - ANEC

IBO - Environmental and Health related Criteria for Buildings
expert group convened by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC)
promotes and seeks consensus between the indoor material labelling schemes. The result
should be a harmonised framework for indoor labelling schemes in Europe and link them to
legislation: “The intention is to align the harmonised framework across various legislative
mandates, such as, Construction Products Directive (89/106/EEC), Energy Performance of
Buildings Directive – EPBD (2002/91/EC), EC Lead Market Initiative (COM(2007)860),
Integrated Product Policy (IPP), Chemicals Policy (REACH), Green Public Procurement,
Thematic Strategy on Urban Environment (COM(2004)60), Integration of Environmental
Aspects into European Standardisation (COM(2004)206), etc.” (ECA-IAQ, 2010)
In ECA-IAG draft report n° 27 (ECA-IAQ, 2010) a first step was taken in direction of a
consensus achieved among the representatives of the Danish (DICL) and Finnish (M1)
labelling schemes and the German (AgBB) and French (AFSSET) evaluation systems. This
framework envisions
- common core criteria on testing and evaluation methodologies to be accepted by
consensus and
- optional criteria to be applied locally for those substances/factors for which no consensus
exists yet.
The criteria were suggested taking into consideration the results of round robin testing of
products. This round robin testing was performed according to the individual schemes and
the on-going work within the European standardisation body (CEN/TC 351).
The main findings in ECA-EAQ draft report n°27 are:
- Until harmonised standards become available, ISO 16000-series standards should be
used for measurement with two exceptions:
- A reference room size has already been proposed and shall be used instead of the
ISO 16000-9 informative annex B.
- Emission testing should include two chamber air sampling times (day 3 and 28)
- The evaluation criteria should cover all contaminants of concern to health and comfort
and be based on scientific evidence when available.
- TVOC should not be used alone as an indicator for evaluating health effects from indoor
material emissions. A common approach for TVOC definition along with an upper limit for
TVOC should be established.
- If volatile compounds classified as EU carcinogens are detected after 3 days, the test can
be stopped.
- The LCI-approach is currently the most feasible strategy beyond the evaluated schemes
to assess the health effects of compounds from buildings materials. An expert group
should be initiated to propose common European LCI-criteria. Criteria should be set also
for substances not having LCI values (i.e., “non-assessable” substances).
- Sensory evaluation is considered to be an important part in the assessment of material
emissions.
Table 30 gives an overview about the consensus reached for the measurement methods, the
core and the optional criteria (ECA-EAQ, 2010).
Final Report 149 31 03 2011