Environmental Assessment of Construction Products – Challenges, Priorities, and Needs from Producers’ Perspective. A Review

Abstract

The article presents the current state of knowledge in assessing the environmental impact of construction products. The analysis was carried out to examine the possibility of reliable assessment and verification of the environmental impact of construction products by the manufacturer in connection with the planned introduction of mandatory environmental assessment in the EU. The results of a systematic literature review for the keywords of this article indicated many different problems and imperfections in the existing assessment model using product life cycle analysis, among which the most important is the incomparability of the results obtained, which is a crucial issue related to the manufacturer’s credibility. The literature review indicated that implementing a new, mandatory model for assessing the environmental impact of construction products in EU countries will be a challenge for all market participants. The rational implementation of the environmental assessment of construction products will be complex and require much more work and time than was planned by the European Commission. A comparison of the results of this literature review with the assumptions of the new EU model of environmental assessment of construction products also indicates the lack of knowledge transfer from science to public administration, negatively affecting the rationality of the decision-making process. In light of the literature review results, the only reasonable solution is to create sectoral environmental declarations. Adopting such a solution will allow manufacturers of construction products to rationalize the expenses related to their development and avoid the chaos that may arise when environmental impact data are incomparable.