The industry of the construction products manufacturers organised a workshop in the European parliament on the 27th March. The purpose of this event was to discuss and debate the rules that provide relevant information of construction products on websites.

A large amount of construction products have been CE marked according to the Construction Products Directive. After 1st July 2013, the Construction Products Regulation will substitute this Directive but the CE marking will remain with minor changes. One of the most important changes will be the need to provide a document called Declaration of Performance, which contains the performance of the essential characteristics of the construction product. Both documents, the declaration of performance and the CE marking, are the key to provide the needed information to every stakeholder in the construction chain.

This action is one of the first steps of the construction products industry to give legal value to the widespread initiatives that provide information about its products through digital media. “The European cement industry puts yearly 1 billion bags on the EU market and hence is in urgent need of being allowed to make its DoPs available via internet” states Claude Loréa, CEMBUREAU Deputy Chief Executive.

According to Pavlos Vatavalis, European Aluminium Association EAA AISBL, “It is vital to develop DoP on websites for specific market sectors. Thanks to the organisation of the CEPMC workshop and the open discussion that gave the floor to all stakeholders, the procedure seems to be accelerated significantly.”
When the legal procedure has finished, information about construction products will not only be accessible, easy to understand and easy to manage, but a great reduction in the use of resources will also be achieved.

The rules of providing a Declarations of Performance will be decided in the coming weeks under the legal process established by the regulation (delegated act). The debate in the European Parliament was an excellent opportunity to exchange points of view and find an agreement on the details of the valid procedures.