The CSTB launches Ecoscale: Environmental assessment at the service of the circularity of construction products and equipment
Digital Tools
Par Bat infosource: CSTB via Le Bonheur est dans la Com '
On Tuesday 4 April, in the presence of players in the construction sector, the CSTB launched ECOSCALE, a tool for evaluating the circularity of building products and equipment, based on four indicators covering the entire life cycle: recycled materials & renewables, dismantling, reusability and recyclability.
Based on the scientific and technical expertise of the CSTB, ECOSCALE allows manufacturers who so wish to enhance their eco-design and circularity approach by means of a reliable and objective assessment. For prescribers and design actors, ECOSCALE is a robust information tool, at the service of an informed choice.
Eco-design and circularity: priorities to support, characterize and promote
Among the many challenges of environmental transition, two particularly concern the construction and building sector: limiting greenhouse gas emissions and reducing the drain on resources, contributing to the fight against global warming. .
These challenges have led manufacturers for several years to review their products to adapt them to these two challenges, while limiting the production of final waste and developing recycling and reuse, at the heart of the extended producer responsibility set up by the anti-waste law for the circular economy (AGEC).
To support the sector in this virtuous dynamic, scientifically characterize performance and objectively promote the associated approaches, CSTB has designed ECOSCALE: an environmental assessment of the circularity of building products and equipment.
ECOSCALE: environmental assessment, at the service of circularity
Developed in consultation with all players in the construction sector (industrialists, structure design players, companies, design offices, public authorities, insurers, etc.), ECOSCALE makes it possible to evaluate and classify building products and equipment. according to four indicators, complementary to the carbon impact and covering their entire life cycle:
Recycled & renewable materials : evaluation of the quantity of recycled and/or renewable materials in the product.
Dismantling : ability of the product to be dismantled without damage, in order to facilitate its reuse or recycling (the types of connections that connect the product to the work, their accessibility and visibility, the level of expertise and skills are taken into account in particular necessary for dismantling, etc.).
Re-employability : capacity of the product to be used again, at the end of its life cycle, for a new use identical to that for which it was designed (are taken into account in particular the indicator of disassembly of the product, the existence a methodological guide for performance evaluation with a view to reuse, storage conditions and reconditioning difficulties, etc.).
Recyclability : ability for the product to integrate a recycling channel at the end of its life to be recycled (the separability of the components, the state of development of the recycling channel concerned, the presence of substances that may hinder the recycling, etc).
ECOSCALE: methodology
For each of the indicators, characterized according to the use retained for the evaluation, the products are rated from A to E. The results obtained are presented in a clear manner and integrated into the ECOSCALE reference database. They are accessible via a QR code affixed to each evaluated product, linking directly to the ECOSCALE database.
A voluntary approach, ECOSCALE is aimed at all manufacturers wishing to objectify and enhance the circularity of their products or equipment, provided that the latter have an FDES/PEP (collective or individual) and present minimum technical performance.
Beyond that, ECOSCALE also allows project owners, prime contractors and specifiers to simplify their research and clarify their choice of solutions that effectively meet eco-design and circularity requirements, via the ECOSCALE database, accessible on www.ecoscale.cstb.fr
The CSTB: scientific and technical expertise, particularly at the service of economic and resource issues
ECOSCALE benefits from the technical expertise of the CSTB, particularly in connection with its research and performance assessment activities for construction products and systems.
ECOSCALE also benefits from the many works carried out by the CSTB to support companies, project owners, industrialists, institutions and public authorities in their responses to the challenges of preserving resources and a sustainable and virtuous circular economy, to accelerate the transformation of the sector.