CONSTRUCTION PRODUCTS EUROPE

Annual report

2017-2018

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THE WORD OF THE PRESIDENT

Let’s build an efficient Europe

The word of the president

The construction industry accounts for 29% of total employment across the whole EU. It provides 42 million local, skilled jobs that are created by 3 million companies, most of which are SMEs but also world leading multinationals headquartered in Europe. We create a better, sustainable Europe by providing housing and infrastructure for 750 million European citizens and by developing smart and innovative construction materials for efficient housing and infrastructure. As an important actor for the creation of local added value, the European construction industry is at the heart of Europe’s growth. It is one of the corner stones of industry and society as well as a vital economic stimulator.

These facts speak for themselves, we should be proud to remind everyone of the importance of our sector and this is one of the objectives of Construction Products Europe. After a period of reorganisation and reorientation, which is now completed, we aim to provide a strong representation of the building products industry and to work closely with the European Institutions. Our Secretariat is run by an efficient team which has clearly raised the visibility of the construction products industry in Brussels. I take for example our most recent well-attended event on the digitalisation which demonstrated the future-oriented innovation power of our industry.

We know that Europeans are calling for efficient housing, infrastructure and employment. With the right investment policies at local, national and EU level, and a stable legal framework our industry can deliver the required solutions. If we look back over the last two years, we have seen attempts by the European Institutions to address the needs of the construction industry. The extension until 2020 of the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) agreed by the Council in December 2016 and the proposed streamlining of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) are but two examples. Nevertheless, further steps will be necessary to move forward. For us creating synergies amongst our members and with other relevant stakeholders to relay the needs of the industry and promote our capacity through coordinated action will be most vital in reaching our goal to create an efficient Europe together.


Dr Heimo Scheuch, CEO Wienerberger AG

key figures of

EU construction industry

14

million jobs

42.9M

million direct or indirect jobs

6.4%

of total employment

28.9%

of industrial employment

104.9

billion € turn over

8.6%

of Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

3.3

million companies

95%

of SMEs with < 20 employees

The word ofthe director general

Christophe Sykes

Another year, another annual report or maybe not quite as this year marks the 30th anniversary of Construction Products Europe.

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The word ofthe director general

Another year, another annual report or maybe not quite as this year marks the 30th anniversary of Construction Products Europe. Oscar and I have been part of this on-going story for nearly six years now, Marie-France for (quite) a little longer! It is a small team but an efficient and most pleasant one.

It is worth remembering that our association was set up in 1988 to allow the construction products manufacturers to voice their opinion in the development of the Construction Product Directive. Thirty years on, we are still deeply engaged in the development of CE marking rules and the internal market for construction products. However, we now voice the manufacturers opinions in a much greater number of European dossiers that include issues related to digital and sustainable construction. Indeed, we proudly celebrate the launch of our Smart CE CEN Workshop Agreement this year. This option will allow manufacturer to deliver their Declaration of Performance in a BIM-friendly digital format. Thank you again to all those who work hard to make this a reality.

As most of you will know, my sport has and will always be rugby. So please allow me to draw some parallels between this amazing sport and our work environment. In rugby, you can only win if players work together as a team. The success of Construction Products Europe rests on a perfect combination of support and involvement of our members, an efficient staff and the very positive collaboration we have with other stakeholders of the construction value-chain. As in any high-pressure environment, everyone must have the opportunity to contribute so we take pride in listening to all the opinions that are voiced in-house and look for synergies with other interested parties. So in short, rugby's tradition of integrity, passion, solidarity and respect are values that are incorporated in our work ethos and will carry us forward in the years to come.

European construction product data

from a digital transformation to a circular economy, a tentative forecast.

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European construction product data

Whilst the European Commission regularly underlines the importance of the European construction industry, the industry seldom makes the headlines. However, the numerous technological developments grouped under the digital construction banner now bring renewed interest. This welcomed focus, combined with our 30th anniversary, gives us the opportunity to look ahead and try to outline the upcoming trends that will shape data delivery soon.

Over the last years, our work concentrated on the Construction Products Regulation (CPR) and the EU sustainable construction agenda. The latter was defined by our dedicated European CEN standard – EN 15804 - which guides the delivery of Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) to the market. After many years of work, this voluntary product level declaration was suddenly challenged by the European Commission through the publication of their Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) initiative. The European construction products industry had been a leader in sustainability declaration but had failed to promote its use for building assessment. With the more recent launch of Level(s) - a voluntary reporting framework to improve the sustainability of buildings - by the European Commission, we hope the gap will be finally bridged. The competing PEF4buildings, also developed by Commission services, should be mentioned because it truly illustrates the need for consensus and harmonisation.

Looking ahead and based on the compromises made between PEF, EPDs and Level(s), we can foresee a single methodology allowing for product and building level sustainability assessments. An agreement could be reached in the course of 2019 when the new version of EN 15804 and the final Level(s) methodology will be published. This will be a year of change with both the European Parliament elections and the selection of a new European Commission leadership team. This time, the construction industry will have to secure political support for its sustainability tool and analyse how to further develop circular economy solutions.

With the application of the CPR as of July 2013, manufacturers are allowed to supply their product’s Declaration of Performance (DoP) by "electronic means". The legislator was wise enough not to define these means as the digital transformation of industry had already begun. These mandatory DoPs contain quality data that regretfully remains mostly unused and yet Building Information Modelling (BIM) systems are the talking point of our industry. The "Smart CE" concept has been developed to make full use of this legal option and to release technical data to the market in a BIM-friendly format. CEN Technical Committees are already working to deliver standardised formats, when available these will become the reference formats for CPR-related electronic data delivery.

If we now turn our attention to the European Commission’s clear intention to enforce the CPR’s Basic Works Requirement 7 - product information on the sustainable use of natural resources – we may see a need to explore an electronic format for our EPDs. Indeed, if sustainability data is combined with technical information within a mandatory declaration, we need to ensure that Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) data is the reference. Producers would deliver data to the market in a single, harmonised methodology.

Two additional topics shall be mentioned: the potential revision of the CPR and the global trend towards a more circular economy in Europe. The ongoing assessment of the regulation is a source of uncertainty for the industry. Our experts all agreed, we must urgently find solutions to resolve the CPR implementation problems, such as the hEN citation backlog, and to postpone any potential revision to quieter political times. At the same time the industry trust EPD and LCA information as the core input to assess circularity of construction products. Our industry is ready to deliver updated and reliable information based on a common European approach but this will only be possible if manufacturers keep the ownership of the information and take the responsibility of their updates.

European construction product data

European construction product data

communication

key figures

705

newsletter subscribers(up 15%)

1724

twitter followers(up 17%)

1961

intranet documents(up 11%)

52422

pages viewed on website(up 6%)

Past events

8 December 2017

Smart CE
information day

CEN and Construction Products Europe launched together the development of a CEN Workshop Agreement on Smart CE marking. The deliverable of this initiative will be a CEN document explaining in detail how Declarations of Performance (DoP) should be digitalised to fulfill the regulatory requirements of the CPR.

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22 February 2018

Digital Construction,
2018 EU Industry days

CECE, FIEC, EBC and Construction Products Europe co-hosted a "Digital Construction" seminar in Brussels as part of the 2018 EU Industry Days. This initiative follows the recent European Commission event on this topic and aims to review and answer some of the questions posed by DG GROW.

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19 April 2018

GDPR
workshop

Construction Products Europe organised this workshop to discuss how to deal with the new GDPR requirements. Issues such as the need to update the privacy policy or the organisations or how to get "opt in" confirmation when collecting contact details from experts were discussed.

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