PU Europe presented today a generic Environmental Product Declaration for PU (PUR/PIR) insulation boards in a move to increase the transparency of construction products markets and facilitate the development towards sustainable construction design solutions.

Background:

An environmental product declaration (EPD) is a communication tool that provides quantified information on the potential environmental impacts of a product or process based on information from a life cycle assessment (LCA) over its entire lifetime or a part of it. An important advantage of using EPDs is the possibility to add LCA-based information in the supply chain. This feature makes EPDs particularly valuable for the building sector where the final building is based on a large number of materials, construction products, semi-manufactured products and processes. The EPD for PU was established through a third-party verified system based on the future CEN standard prEN 15804 and covers the cradle-to-gate phase of the product.

On behalf of PU Europe, Shpresa Kotaji (Huntsman Polyurethanes and PU Europe Life Cycle Assessment expert) commented, “With the publication of our EPD, we do not only respond to an increasing market need, we also want to pro-actively increase market transparency and facilitate sustainable material choices at the building level.”

It is indeed important to know that EPDs for construction products cannot simply be compared on the basis of a weight unit. Comparisons can only be performed at the level of the building so as to establish how much of a product is needed to meet certain design requirements and how material choices affect the overall building design in terms of ancillary materials, component weight and thickness, building footprint etc.

The PU industry will further step up its efforts to optimise production technologies and processes. “We can expect these efforts to lead to significant improvements in the overall environmental balance of PU insulation products over the next few years”, Kotaji concluded.

The Environmental Product Declaration is available here.

For more details, please contact

PU Europe

Email: secretariat@pu-europe.eu Website: www.pu-europe.eu

Learn more about the benefits of polyurethane insulation at www.excellence-in-insulation.eu.

20th May 2010