Urban air, indoor environment and human exposure Environment and Quality of Life

Report No 29
Harmonisation framework for health based evaluation of indoor emissions from construction products in the European Union using the EU-LCI concept

The health based evaluation of chemical emissions from construction products is an integral part of the harmonisation framework for indoor products labelling schemes in the EU. The harmonisation process for the health based evaluation of gas-phase chemical emissions from construction products in Europe is based on the LCI (‘Lowest Concentration of Interest’) approach1, described fully in this report.

The work was co-ordinated by the European Commission’s Directorate General Joint Research Centre (DG JRC) and performed in the context of the PILOT INDOOR AIR MONIT administrative arrangement with the Directorate General for Health and Consumers (SANCO) in liaison with experts from some EU Member States, the construction industry, the European Chemicals Industry (CEFIC), and also in consultation with the Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry (DG ENTR).

The EU-LCI development work outlined in the present report builds on firm foundations of the existing national evaluation systems established by AgBB (German Committee for Health-related Evaluation of Building Products) in Germany and ANSES (French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety) in France that currently apply the LCI concept, the Danish Indoor Climate Labelling (DICL), the Finnish (M1) and Belgium labelling schemes, and from chemical emission test laboratories in the UK, France, Finland and Denmark. Ultimately, the harmonisation process and procedures
described here will allow voluntary and mandatory labelling schemes to evaluate product emissions in the same way by using a robust health-based procedure. This work also supports the establishment of future emission classes for CE marking (Conformité Européenne) under the European Construction Products Regulation (CPR, 2011) with a harmonised list of LCI values (EU-LCIs).

ECA 2013